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 3061 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 24 January 2024
Gillian Martin
Two sets of guidance notes—those on the welfare of meat chickens and those on the welfare of laying hens—have been part of the same process. The committee will have had a letter from me that set out the reasons for the change. We have moved from a code of practice to guidance because guidance can be published, revised and updated very quickly. As you will appreciate, when it comes to animal welfare issues—especially those to do with farmed animals—it is quite a fast-moving scene. We can receive recommendations from bodies such as the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission that we think need to be applied.
The guidance in question is available for people who work with farmed animals so that they can ensure that the welfare of those animals is as good as it can be. The accommodation of such animals and the conditions in which they must be housed are examples of what the guidance covers.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Gillian Martin
Hugh Dignon has just said that fewer than 2,000—
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Gillian Martin
Yes—that is the data that we have. If there is any data beyond or below that at a granular level, I will provide it to the committee. However, I go back to what we have just been saying: there is no way of knowing these things, because there is no recording mechanism and it is not legally incumbent on anybody to report what animal was caught in a snare, when it happened and what was done with it.
10:00Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Gillian Martin
It has not put that to me as being an issue.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Gillian Martin
As Mr Carson knows, in the same way as we do not tend to have codes of practice as part of the text of a bill, we would not have a working protocol or arrangement between two bodies that were affected by the legislation in the bill itself. The SSPCA and Police Scotland are already working together on it, but the protocol will not form part of the bill.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Gillian Martin
I can certainly follow that up with Ms Burgess afterwards. Forgive me, but I am focusing on snaring today.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Gillian Martin
There are a number of different impact assessments. Which particular impact assessment would Ms Hamilton—
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Gillian Martin
I could not agree more. There are people who are acting completely responsibly and who care about the environment, wildlife and animal welfare who are being tarred with the same brush as the very small number of people perpetrating wildlife crime. I hope that we will look back on all the legislation that we are proposing and say that it has been a good thing for the reputation of people who have been maligned in many cases and tarred with that brush. It is a very good point.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Gillian Martin
I think that I was given this portfolio in mid-June. The day after I appeared before the committee to give stage 1 evidence, I met with Scottish Land & Estates and agreed to give it and other stakeholders that are involved in land management, particularly on shooting estates, an opportunity to have a round-table meeting with me, specifically on humane cable restraints. That round-table meeting took place in St Andrews house at the end of September. It lasted for a good hour to 90 minutes, during which time stakeholders were able to put forward quite a lot of detail with regard to what you are talking about. I have been in touch with those stakeholders and I have been able to have meetings with them whenever they have asked for them.
On engagement prior to that, I have a list of the ministerial meetings with stakeholders on the bill and I can forward that to the committee, if the convener would like that. I met with Scottish Land & Estates on 28 June and with RSPB on 20 July. I had a round-table meeting on humane cable restraints on 26 September, which included quite a lot of stakeholders. I met with the British Association for Shooting and Conservation on 3 October, NFU Scotland on 17 October and OneKind on 24 October, and I had a further meeting with RSPB Scotland on 20 September. I have made myself available to any group that wants to advocate one way or the other with regard to snares and working practices for groups such as RSPB Scotland, gamekeepers or anybody involved with the management of shooting estates.
I hope that all those bodies would say that I have made myself available. I have watched the evidence that this committee has taken—I watched it very thoroughly before my first appearance at the committee—and I have continued to engage with all those groups. However, well before I was given this appointment, in June, my officials were working on the bill and with all those stakeholders.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 November 2023
Gillian Martin
I gave a commitment to SLE and other partners off the back of the round-table meeting, at which they were advocating for a licensing scheme and the use of humane cable restraints in some situations. I offered them the opportunity to provide me with the detail of what they would want to see in a licensing scheme. I got that detail only on Monday night—48 hours ago. Given that I made the offer to them to look at what they proposed, it is incumbent on me to do so, and I and my officials are still looking at it.
