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 6583 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Edward Mountain
Thanks, Ben.
Mark, I think that you have some questions now.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Edward Mountain
If someone diversified a proportion of the holding to the extent that farming the remainder of the holding became impossible, would that be allowed? Is there a concern about that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Edward Mountain
I want to check that I understand what you are saying. Let us take the example of a 600-hectare farm. Let us say that a proposal was made to use 300 hectares of it for Christmas trees, for example, because the existing farmer wanted to run a smaller number of sheep and cattle. Subsequently, it would be impossible to farm a greater number of sheep and cattle, because the land would be being used for Christmas trees. What rights does the landlord have in that situation, or does he not have any?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Edward Mountain
My other question is about the encouragement of diversification. A lot of farms have more than one house, but the farm itself might produce enough work for only one family and, as a result, the houses are sometimes used as holiday lettings or, indeed, places where retired or younger members of the family can live. That sort of thing is not covered the rent review—and is, in fact, excluded. Is that right?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Edward Mountain
If the deemed landlord were the landowner and they had to do all that work, would it not be reasonable for them to expect some return for that in the rent? If the deemed landlord was the tenant, obviously they, too, would need to offset some of the costs that they incur for all their work.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Edward Mountain
I see that committee members have no further questions, so without opening this up to a long diatribe about everything that we have missed, I just want to ask you whether there is anything in particular that we have missed and which we ought to be thinking about in future sessions. I ask that you limit your comments in that respect, but is there anything that you think that we need to concentrate on?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Edward Mountain
Fergus or Gail, do you want to add anything?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Edward Mountain
It does seem somewhat confusing. Fergus or Gail, do you want to add anything?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Edward Mountain
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 22nd meeting in 2024 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. Our first item of business is to decide whether to take in private item 3, which is consideration of the evidence that we have heard on the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. Do we agree to take that item in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Edward Mountain
The second and main item of business is our second stage 1 evidence session on the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. This is the first panel of legal advisers that the committee will hear from during our scrutiny of the bill, and it is likely that we will have a second such panel after summer recess.
I am pleased to welcome Gail Watt, who is the convener of the property and land law reform sub-committee at the Law Society of Scotland. Our next witness is Fergus—how will I get this right? Am I about to pronounce your surname incorrectly?
