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 2492 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
I acknowledge the committee’s interest and the points that have been raised by its members today. This is in all our best interests, and we all share the same aim in what we want to achieve through the 2022 act and the plans that we have produced, as well as what we hope the Scottish food commission can help us to achieve. I welcome the interventions that have been made today.
Motion agreed to,
That the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee recommends that the Scottish Food Commission (Appointment) Regulations 2024 be approved.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
I will comment briefly on that before I turn to Allan Gibb, who will be able to provide a bit more detail on that and some of the changes that we are seeing as a result of the issues that you raised.
There are other measures in place and other changes that have been developed in an attempt to protect spawning cod as much as possible, which Allan Gibb will be able to talk about. I am referring to changes to the size of mesh panels and to the engine sizes of vessels to ensure that we minimise disturbance as much as possible and that we do not catch what we should not catch.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
Allan Gibb wants to respond.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
Again, we set that out previously. I understand that there is an impact for that short period but, again, we do not implement such measures when we have other closures, nor when it comes to our marine protected area. That is why we have not offered compensation, as we have not previously. We have not changed the position this time round.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
Yes. As we have stated, we appreciate and recognise that. Some fishers can move elsewhere during the period of the closure, which is short term, but that is not the same for everyone across the board, and there is an impact. However, for the reasons that I set out, we do not intend to change our position.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
Again, I appreciate your point. We discussed that at length in relation to the previous order, which provided for the closure over the past couple of years. As I have highlighted, although some people can move elsewhere, I know that that is not possible for everyone. However, we have not changed our position this time round.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
I absolutely do, as I intimated in my opening comments. I know that the issue has elicited strong feeling, as it did last time round. The work that we have agreed to take forward is therefore important.
As I also set out in my opening remarks, this is about the balance that we have to strike between taking environmental measures to protect spawning cod and the economic impact of doing so. None of these decisions is at all easy to make but, ultimately, in making them, we are trying to encourage the restoration of the stock through protecting those spawning cod as much as possible.
I hope that, given the other work that we have set out, and through continuing to engage with the likes of the CFA as we take things forward, we can continually improve our evidence base. However, as things stand, we base our decisions on the best available scientific evidence.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
I will not prejudge a position that could be taken in a couple of years, but, as with anything, we have to continue monitoring and looking at that. The position this time round might not be the same in a couple of years, but we need to see what emerges during the closures over the next couple of years.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
Such decisions will always be really challenging—there is no getting round that. I know that some people would like exemptions to be in place, as there were before we brought in the order that came before the committee previously. Given the impact that closure has on people’s businesses, none of these decisions are taken lightly. I talked about the balance that we have to try to achieve between the environment and the economy. We need to get all of that right. However, when you are telling people to stop fishing in a particular area and that impacts on their business, there is no getting round the fact that that is a really difficult decision for us, as well as being difficult for them financially.
10:00That is why we are continuing engagement with the likes of the CFA. We want that to be part of the process and the work that we are taking forward. I hope that we can continue to work together in that vein and provide more of an evidence base.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
Allan Gibb will want to come in on specific issues in relation to that in a moment.
To go back to a point that Allan made previously, when we look at the different methods of fishing in isolation, we see that they might not have much impact, and the impact of the different fishing methods is very different, but the issue is the collective nature and what that means in relation to creeling. We have talked about what varying numbers of creels could look like and the hauling that is involved, which could cause disturbance on the sea bed. That goes back to the decision that we have taken.
Allan, are there specific points that you want to come in on?
