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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Displaying 6747 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Edward Mountain
That was done by the Scottish Land Commission, which has come up with a whole heap of recommendations post the bill’s publication. You listened to the commission before, but you have not listened to it on the bill.
Anyway, there are lots of follow-up questions. Kevin Stewart will be first.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Edward Mountain
One of the things that I have found difficult is that the Scottish Land Commission, which I assume you spoke to before you introduced the bill—you certainly pay it £1.5 million to give the Government advice—disagreed with the proposals and has come up with a whole list of additional evidence. Surely that is not helpful. Surely that evidence should have come in before the bill was introduced. Why do you ignore the concerns that the Scottish Land Commission says that it has had for some time?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Edward Mountain
I am glad that you mentioned the community right to buy. I am sure that we will come back to it, but I note that the findings of the consultation will be disclosed post the next stage of the bill’s consideration, which is hardly ideal.
I go back to the fact that this is our third tranche of land reform legislation since the Scottish Parliament came in, and all of it has focused on rural areas, with nothing on urban areas. Are you saying that all the problems are in the countryside and that there is nothing in urban areas?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Edward Mountain
We move on to questions from Douglas Lumsden.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Edward Mountain
The bill suggests that the tenant farming commissioner will be approached to produce a valuer, does it not?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Appointment of the Chair of Environmental Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Edward Mountain
You are not forgotten, Monica.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Edward Mountain
The TFC will have to produce a valuer. I think that the TFC is saying, “Let us produce a valuer if agreement cannot be reached”. Would that not be a worthwhile amendment?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Edward Mountain
What about agreeing the compensation 12 months in advance? Fiona, you have just said that steel and fertiliser prices go up in days, let alone over 12-month periods. What it costs to produce a fence today may be doubled tomorrow. According to your books, a metre of deer fence costs £50. Is 12 months a reasonable period, or should it be shorter?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Edward Mountain
In response to your comment, I have to say that I think that they will do as much damage as the proposals that are being suggested. My question to you is therefore this: how do you compensate somebody? You are suggesting that there will be a different form of compensation. When I enter a lease with somebody, as people have done with me, they know that I am going to farm the land and I am not going to do anything else with it. I am not after the hope value—I am there to farm it. If they want me to leave—because they can, say, build a house on it—do you think that I should get a bit of the house value, or should I just get the value that I have lost from the farmland?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Appointment of the Chair of Environmental Standards Scotland
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Edward Mountain
That is an interesting conundrum to leave us with. Before we leave, there are two things that I would like to say. One is a question and one is a comment. When people come in and take on new roles, I am always nervous that there will suddenly be a splurge of spending—although for you, Richard, the role will be a continuation of what you are doing. When the new chief executive officer of SEPA came in, I noticed that the first thing that happened was that a massive amount of money was spent on teaching the executive team how to deal with matters, which cost the taxpayer £175,000. Will you confirm that you are not proposing to do anything like that in your term?
