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 [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
Mairi Gougeon
I will ask Jim Watson to come in on that.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
Mairi Gougeon
There would be limited activity through the scientific programme, so there would be some degree of access, which would allow some of the scientific work to take place.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
Mairi Gougeon
The act has a number of objectives that we have to meet: the precautionary objective, the scientific objective and the sustainability objective. We are trying to balance that responsibility with the socioeconomic considerations and the wider impacts that Rhoda Grant touched on.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
Mairi Gougeon
We are keen to keep the committee updated on the work, because I appreciate how much interest there is in the order and the broader impacts, given the views that the committee has heard from a wide range of stakeholders. I committed in my opening comments to providing the committee with an annual update on that work, but we will also keep the committee updated on other pieces of work that could impact the work, such as the future catching policy, which we have touched on today. Clearly, if evidence emerged during that three-year period that suggested that we needed to adapt the closed area or make significant changes that would mean that another instrument needed to be brought forward, that is, of course, what we would do.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
Mairi Gougeon
We have mechanisms to allow single-handed vessels to take part. Although we cannot get observers on board those vessels, REM will ensure that they can take part, so it is not the case that they cannot take part.
I emphasise the points that I have made previously. I absolutely appreciate the impact that the measures have had on people. The committee has heard directly about the impact, as have my officials and I through the engagement that we have undertaken. We have tried as best we can to gather information about the impacts of the measures through the consultation and impact assessments that we have undertaken, so we are very cognisant of them. We need to balance meeting our legal obligations and considering the wider impacts, especially the social and economic impacts, on our fishermen.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
Mairi Gougeon
I think that it would be in everybody’s best interests to do that. We would want to keep the committee updated if there were to be any changes.
As I said, the whole intention of our approach is that it is adaptive. We take the learning as we go—it is not about hitting the pause button for three years. We would inform the committee of that work and keep the committee updated.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
Mairi Gougeon
Coby Needle will be able to provide more detail on those specific points in a moment. However, just to be clear, the response that I sent to the committee sets out that it is not quantitative but qualitative evidence that we have. As I outlined in that letter, the scientists at the marine directorate have seen cod and other whitefish in creel catches. Observation work has highlighted that that issue needs to be looked at. Coby will be able to provide more information.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
Mairi Gougeon
That is why the science programme is so important. It is about evidencing exactly what is going on, instead of our making assumptions about what might be happening at sea. I do not know whether Jim Watson wants to add to that.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
Mairi Gougeon
The approach that we have set out is balanced, precautionary and proportionate. In my letter to the committee, I set out the evidence on which we based the previous orders and that we are still using for this order. Observations made in the intervening period have meant that we are questioning the hypothesis on which we had based previous decisions. The Strathclyde model has emerged in the interim period, but there are significant gaps in that that we need to fill so that we have the complete picture. We have introduced the order in the way that we have, with the accompanying targeted scientific programme, so that we can get the complete picture and adapt the management as necessary over time.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 11 February 2026
Mairi Gougeon
I re-emphasise what I set out to the committee in my letter and what Coby Needle has outlined about observations made by scientists in the marine directorate that mean that we need to look at creel fishing. It might not be a significant driver, but we need to be able to categorically rule it out if that is the case. We need to examine it and ensure that we are looking at all the different parts of the fleet, so that we get a complete picture of fishing mortality, as well as trying to fill the other evidence gaps.
The important thing to remember about the model is the lack of historical data that is counted as part of it. No data from the past seven years has been used, and there have been closures during that time. We do not have information about creel bycatch.
It is important to work on a precautionary basis and at least maintain the closure. As Jim Watson has outlined, and as I discussed in my opening comments, there will be some limited activity through the closure for scientific purposes. I believe that the approach that we have set out is a proportionate, balanced one to take.
