Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Edward Mountain
The next item of business is stage 2 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, which is consideration of amendments. I welcome the non-committee members who are here today. This is our first stage 2 meeting on the bill. At the moment, the deadline for lodging amendments is 27 June, but more than 516 amendments have already been lodged, which will require some consideration.
Before we go into the detail of the amendments, I remind members, as I always do at the start of stage 2 considerations in this committee, that I have an interest in a farming partnership in Moray, as set out clearly in my entry in the register of members’ interests. Specifically, I declare an interest as the owner of approximately 500 acres—for those of you who want to know the conversion, it is 202 hectares—of farmland, of which 50 acres, or just over 20 hectares, is woodland.
I also declare that I am a tenant of approximately 500 acres, or approximately 202 hectares, in Moray under a non-agricultural tenancy, and that I have another farming tenancy under the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991. I also take on grass lets on an annual basis, should I need to.
It is hard to predict how much progress the committee will make today, but I can say with some confidence that I do not expect us to get past section 6 today. I am looking to stop the stage 2 consideration at around 12.30, so that we have time to consider our work programme.
As this is our first stage 2 meeting on the bill, I will recap the process. Committee members should have before them the bill, the marshalled list and the groupings. For those of you who are watching online, those documents are available on the Scottish Parliament’s bill web page.
I will call each amendment in the order that it appears on the marshalled list. The member who lodged the amendment should either move it or say “not moved” when it is called. If that member does not move the amendment, any other member present may do so. The groupings document sets out the amendments in the order in which they will be debated. There will be one debate on each group of amendments. The member who lodged the first amendment in the group will be called to speak to and move the amendment and to speak to any other amendments in the group. I will then call other members who have amendments in the group to speak, but not to move, their amendments and to speak to the other amendments in the group, if they wish.
I will then call any other members who wish to speak in the debate. If you wish to speak, indicate that to me or to the clerk to make sure that I bring you in. I will then call the cabinet secretary to speak, if she has not already spoken in the debate. Finally, I will call the member who moved the first amendment in the group to wind up and to press or withdraw the amendment. If a member wishes to withdraw an amendment after it has been moved and debated, I will ask whether any member present objects. If there is an objection, I will put the question on the amendment. Later amendments in the group are not debated again when they are reached in the marshalled list. If they are moved, I will put the question on them straight away.
Only committee members may vote in a division, and, because this is a hybrid meeting, voting will be done by roll call. We hope that we will get a result there and then, if the figures tally. If they do not tally, we will do the roll call again until they do—but they will.
That is how it works. There is a huge briefing pack, which is just for today—there is a lot more to come.
Before section 1
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Edward Mountain
The result of the division is: For 2, Against 5, Abstentions 0.
Amendment 310 disagreed to.
Section 1—Community-engagement obligations in relation to large land holding
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Edward Mountain
I call Rhoda Grant to speak to amendment 339 and other amendments in the group.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Edward Mountain
I call Bob Doris to speak to amendment 16 and any other amendments in the group.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Edward Mountain
Amendment 310, in the name of Ariane Burgess, is grouped with amendments 339, 342, 348, 427, 433, 150, 151, 158, 174 to 174B, 364, 459 and 460. Ariane Burgess is at another committee meeting, so Mark Ruskell is going to speak to and move amendment 310, and speak to the other amendments, on her behalf.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Edward Mountain
I call the deputy convener, Michael Matheson, to speak to amendment 150. I will refer to you as “deputy convener” only once—you will get to speak lots of times, but we all know who you are.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Edward Mountain
Do you wish to press or seek to withdraw amendment 310?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Edward Mountain
I thank the member for that. Just for clarity, I should say that, in relation to the accessibility of land management plans, Forestry and Land Scotland probably provides a perfect example when we talk about having a website where you can go straight to a map and find out what is happening in a particular area and when all the felling is going to happen. If you can find that, please tell me where it is, because I cannot. I just think that this could grow arms and legs and become incredibly expensive, and I would like to know more about those issues before I can support the amendment.
My other slight amusement relates to the amendments lodged by Ariane Burgess. The member can correct me if I am wrong, but I think that one of those amendments provides that the purchaser of an estate will have to adopt the plan of the previous owner. That made me smile, because if that were the case, it would mean that the Scottish Government would be letting grouse shooting happen at Glen Prosen.
Is that what you intend, Ariane? It might well be that a purchaser adopting the plan of the previous owner is not what you intended. Do you want to intervene?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Edward Mountain
I call Tim Eagle to wind up and to press or withdraw amendment 10.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 3 June 2025
Edward Mountain
The evidence that the committee heard identified that there are quite a few landowners with holdings smaller than 1,000 hectares that are not contiguous, which is the point that you made. It is quite arbitrary to define “contiguous” as being “within 250 metres of”. Would the cabinet secretary consider amending that definition at stage 3 to include holdings that share the same machinery, management and labour? It is what the Scottish Government has done before in relation to agricultural subsidies, in order to identify whether there are two separate holdings rather than two holdings working together. Would you consider that?
