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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 6073 contributions
|
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Edward Mountain
I can put some flesh on the figures that Christine Grahame referred to, just to help you, cabinet secretary. In 2016, 22,000 tonnes of salmon died in fish farms. In 2021, the figure had risen by 35 per cent to nearly 30,000 tonnes of fish. If you were to put that on lorries that were touching each other nose to tail, they would stretch for nearly 11 miles—that is 11 miles of articulated lorries of dead fish.
In its report “Salmon farming in Scotland”, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee said that mortalities were “too high” and made some recommendations in that regard. I have looked at the information that you provided to this committee, and I do not see that any of those recommendations have been taken on board. The suggestion from the industry was to move fish farms further offshore to prevent gill disease and infections. Another suggestion was not to allow farms where there is high mortality to continue—they are still continuing—and another was to consider a red, amber and green system for farms that are performing or not performing whereby, if they got to amber, they would have to reduce their production, and, if they got to red, they would have to cease it. Do you not think that those were wise recommendations by that committee that would protect the industry from itself? Will you push forward those recommendations?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Edward Mountain
Okay. I will leave it there.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Edward Mountain
However, I will leave that hanging and move on to my other question. The report by the REC Committee, which I was part of, stated:
“SEPA are neither adequate nor effective.”
You have made a comment in the charts on recommendations 62 to 65, which covered SEPA, but it does not cover the real problem that the REC Committee identified, which was that SEPA was not carrying out enough inspections, and particularly unannounced inspections. Do you have any evidence that, since the REC Committee’s report was published, SEPA has carried out more inspections? If so, have more of them been unannounced, so that fish farms have not been prepared for its visits?
10:15Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Edward Mountain
I thank the committee for allowing me to attend. Before we start this session, it is important that I refer to the register of members’ interests. I would like everyone to be aware that, as is stated in the register, I am the co-owner of a wild salmon fishery on the River Spey, along the east coast of Scotland. As such, I have been managing inshore fisheries for over 40 years. The migration routes for smolts leaving and salmon returning to the River Spey are along the east coast of Scotland, where there is no significant salmon farming that affects those fish. I therefore do not believe that salmon farming has any impact on my interest as the proprietor of a wild salmon fishery, but I am keen to make everyone aware of it. I want to be open and transparent about that interest, convener.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Edward Mountain
The level has remained stubbornly high and, over five years, it has not reduced. That means the status quo to me.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Edward Mountain
I have one question before we leave this issue. There has been some discussion that the auctions for ScotWind did not produce as much income as they might have done, on the basis that more emphasis was put on the supply chain benefits. Can you try to quantify that or dispel that rumour before we move on?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Edward Mountain
I look forward to the opportunity to discuss whether it is income or capital for Crown Estate and whether the money should remain within the Crown Estate or come into the Scottish purse, which is a conversation that I had with your predecessor.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Edward Mountain
Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. We move to questions from the committee.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Edward Mountain
Good morning, and welcome to the 16th meeting in 2023 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. Under our first agenda item, we will decide whether to take items 5 and 6 in private. Item 5 is consideration of the evidence that we will hear under item 4, and item 6 is consideration of a draft report on the Scottish Government’s air quality improvement plan. Do we agree to take those items in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Electricity Infrastructure Inquiry
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Edward Mountain
I was taken by an answer that you gave there, cabinet secretary. I do not want to put words into your mouth, but I think that you said that you are not sure that people across Scotland know how much extra transmission we will need across Scotland to meet the demands and the needs of reaching net zero. I think that Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks is talking seven years in advance. I am not sure what the duration is for Scottish Power Energy Networks, but it is a relatively short-term thing.
Would it be useful if we came up with a plan to show what transmission will be needed in order to reach net zero? My mailbox is overloaded at the moment, perhaps like the national grid, and I do not think that anyone knows what is coming down the track towards them. Do you think that we ought to be honest with people and tell them that now?
10:45