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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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Gillian Martin
I do not have that information in front of me. I do not know whether any of my officials has it. We can certainly write back to you with it.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Gillian Martin
We will do that.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Gillian Martin
Yes.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Gillian Martin
We need to have a discussion about the wording around the bill and the code of practice, to address some of the concerns about advisory and directory. I get the wider point, and I have probably said something fairly similar to what you have just said, which is that, by having something in a bill such as this, it has heft behind it.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Gillian Martin
You know how these things work, Mr Carson—you have been doing it long enough.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Gillian Martin
There are a couple of things to say in response to that. In 2021, we made changes to that process, and I have to give Christine Grahame credit for prompting that. Initially, Ms Grahame was looking at doing work on the welfare of dogs. Changes were proposed with regard to the breeding of three litters and upwards a year needing to be licensed and registered, and that was a good move—that has really made a difference to the whole regime.
These are my issues. There will be families and individuals whose pet dog will have one litter or perhaps they have another dog that has a second litter, or whatever. That is not necessarily a breeding business. That is a family whose dog has had a litter, and I do not think that it can be classed in the same way as a business.
My main issue is that local authorities already have responsibility for licensed breeders that can breed three litters and above. To add a register for unlicensed breeders would add too much of a burden, and I am not convinced about what it would achieve for animal welfare.
There are also responsible people in this situation who will apply when they have a litter, whereas irresponsible people will not. How can local authorities enforce that? The personnel power that would be needed for that is unquantifiable. How would the people be identified and quantified? Again, we are talking about what is probably a domestic situation.
Karen Adam made a good point in an earlier meeting. Mistakes happen, not to put too fine a point on it, and, all of a sudden, you might find that your unneutered dog is having puppies in your kitchen at 4 in the morning. You might not have the wherewithal or the time for that and, all of a sudden, you have to be licensed as a dog breeder. That is onerous and probably unmanageable from local authorities’ point of view at a time when they are stretched and finding it difficult to provide the services that they already provide.
To be fair to Ms Grahame, the policy memorandum recognised the enforcement burden on local authorities, but there is also a cost to establishing and maintaining such a register and the personnel who would enforce it. I just do not see how it would be workable.
That is my reason for my support of the general principles of the bill, particularly around education of the buyer and so on, but I am not convinced that the registration of unlicensed breeders is needed, that it would have an effect and that it would be workable.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Gillian Martin
The part of the bill that says an unlicensed operator could do what?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Gillian Martin
I accept that. On part 2, you are right—it is a suggestion. However, we already have the powers to put a register in place under previous legislation. I agree with you that the wording of part 2 does not mean that a register would have to happen; you just want the ability for it to happen. I hope that I have outlined some concerns that you might want to address when you give evidence and as you take the bill forward.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Gillian Martin
That depends on the shape or form in which the bill goes through Parliament. There are two parts to it. If it goes through in its current form, there will be a registration system for unlicensed breeders and—
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 25 October 2023
Gillian Martin
I appreciate that Ms Hamilton wants to hammer home points that have already been made, but I am not entirely sure what I can usefully add to what I have already said. It is right to point out that the code of practice already exists, as do the powers to amend it under the 2006 act.
There is one thing to say about members’ bills. I know that a few people around this table have introduced members’ bills in the past; I certainly did when I was a back bencher. A member’s bill can raise awareness of an issue and can have a campaign associated with it. It can shine a light on an issue that a member feels lacks awareness in society. I applaud members who do that, and this is one such case.
