Chamber and committees

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.

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.

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Displaying 6078 contributions

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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee

Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 February 2024

Edward Mountain

I hear your arguments, and we can agree to disagree, but I am looking for clarity, because I am trying to rally behind your amendment 56 for future debates. There is a line in it that is cause for slight concern. It talks about

“the applicant”

completing

“a training course approved under section 12E in respect of the type of trap in question”.

Does that mean a quail or a DOC trap, a Fenn trap, a self-set spring trap, a Larsen trap, a funnel trap or a cage trap, or will the trap licence cover all of them? If a gamekeeper or a moorland manager has to do a course for every single trap, they will never be able to use them, because they will still be doing the courses. Once they have completed them, they will have to start again on the next one.

Rural Affairs and Islands Committee

Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 February 2024

Edward Mountain

When I saw the grouping, I got quite excited, because I thought that I could speak for as long as I wanted, because the grouping was so big. However, in fairness to the committee, I got some looks of shock and horror, even from the clerks, at that comment, so maybe I will not do that. I will speak to my amendments and, as I get to close, I will comment on all of the amendments in the group.

Amendment 179 is about adding a qualification to the legislation to ensure that the relevant authority should be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that a licence should not be granted. That is just a nice form of wording to make sure that it is not decided on a whim. We are all concerned that, sometimes, the people who are responsible for issuing the licences are the judge, jury and executioner when it comes to those licences, and I do not think that that is a happy place to be.

Amendment 18 would allow the person, should they be refused a licence, to appeal it through the sheriff’s court, so that costs could be awarded to them. That seems eminently fair if it is proved that the system has let the person down and that they should get their costs back.

Convener, as I said, I could talk to all the amendments in the group. You will be pleased that I am not going to. I will sit back and take my opportunity at the end.

Rural Affairs and Islands Committee

Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 February 2024

Edward Mountain

In line with the approach of other members, I will keep my comments short and speak only to my amendments and to those that I think are truly important.

As far as amendment 179 is concerned, I am not sure that I understand the reticence about making sure that the process is beyond criticism. By adding “beyond reasonable doubt”, we make sure that the process is beyond reasonable doubt rather than just dependent on the opinion of one person.

I have been taken by Beatrice Wishart’s argument on amendment 119. I understand why she wants to add the word “estimated”, and I also understand why Ms Hamilton might not want it to be included. However, I suspect that, on balance, the best that can be achieved is an estimate. I do not think that anyone should be frightened of supporting amendment 119.

There is a clear argument for amendment 64, in the name of Rachael Hamilton, on limiting the amount of time for which a licence can be suspended. I support Stephen Kerr’s amendments on the basis that they would add a baseline to that, so that people could understand. Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 66, which would mean that no penalties would be enforced before the appeal process was heard, is also important.

I have heard the minister’s comments that amendment 18 would put a statutory obligation on the sheriff to award costs. I will not move that amendment but I will rewrite it so that you can prepare your arguments for when it comes back at stage 3, minister—I do not doubt that you will have anticipated that coming.

On Rachael Hamilton’s amendments 161 and 162, I am deeply concerned that the minister is suggesting that the only outcome after an appeal is judicial review. Judicial review is hugely expensive.

Rural Affairs and Islands Committee

Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 February 2024

Edward Mountain

I thank Ms Hamilton for clarifying that. It is what concerns me, too. I will not go too much into the details of a specific case, but I know of an appeal that was lodged that was heard by the same person who had made a judgment on it, which is inherently wrong.

I would like to work with the minister on one suggestion. Perhaps she could indicate whether it would be possible to work on a system that includes a level of independent arbitration when it comes to making a decision on the process. Certainly, in the past, when SNH challenged me on something, it refused my appeal, but, in arbitration, its position was overturned. Arbitration gives individuals the ability to do that at minimal cost, without having to go to judicial review or the sheriff court. I do not know whether the minister is in a position to say whether she would entertain discussions on that.