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 897 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak to amendment 143, in the name of Colin Smyth, and to raise the concerns of my colleague Stephen Kerr, who unfortunately cannot be here today.
Amendment 143 represents a deliberate and targeted attempt to compromise rural businesses that rely on grouse shooting as part of their income stream. Given the body of evidence that demonstrates the benefits of muirburn that is carried out by grouse moor managers for diverse forms of moorland wildlife, it seems counterintuitive to remove the primary motivation for undertaking such activity in the first place. Moreover, moorland game includes species such as black grouse, which is a red-list species of conservation concern whose populations are now largely confined to moorland that is managed for grouse shooting, partly because of the muirburn that is undertaken to benefit moorland game on such landholdings.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
That discussion highlighted some of the intentions behind the bill, but it is difficult to have much confidence in how they will be practically implemented. I will press the amendment on Stephen Kerr’s behalf. Perhaps there could be further engagement between the minister and Mr Kerr on those areas.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 20 February 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
That point might have more standing, had there not been cuts when times were better, too.
When you were here in January, I asked you about Business Gateway. Will you clarify the support for that? I apologise if I missed this in the large number of papers that we received for this meeting, but can you advise whether Government support is going into Business Gateway? If so, how is that going? Why is it not identified in the budget?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 20 February 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
On the general principle of ring fencing, if the Scottish Government can take ring-fenced money and use it across its budgets, why should local councils not take ring-fenced money from the Scottish Government and use it across their budgets? What is the principal difference there?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 20 February 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Okay—thank you.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 20 February 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I want to go back to the issues around the enterprise bodies and economic growth. When you appeared before the committee in January, I asked you about the cuts to the budgets for Highlands and Islands Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise, and you suggested that they would focus their attention on key priorities. You also talked about key things that matter, key priorities for delivery, key interventions and key sectors for growth. Earlier, in response to the convener, you talked about the enterprise agencies prioritising funding and taking a careful and targeted approach.
However, we still do not know the detail of what you think their priorities and key focuses will be. Their budgets have been cut. What are you looking for them to deliver and what will they now be unable to deliver, given your statement about their important role in driving economic growth?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 20 February 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I would hope that they would be doing things to the best of their ability anyway.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 20 February 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I want to move on to the rural affairs budget and agriculture funding, and at this point, I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests in relation to agriculture.
You do not mention this issue in your response, because although we mentioned it in our report, we did not make a recommendation on it. Cuts have been made to the rural affairs budget, and the £33 million of ring-fenced agriculture funding that was identified as part of the Bew review has not been allocated back to the budget. Do you know yet when it will be?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 20 February 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I apologise for interrupting, but do you have a timescale for when that funding has to be returned by?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 20 February 2024
Jamie Halcro Johnston
But you have reduced funding in the rural affairs budget. You argue that we cannot find a use for that money in the rural affairs budget, but you have cut that budget.
On the point that I was really asking about, why should a local authority that receives ring-fenced funding from the Scottish Government for certain parts of its public service delivery not say, “If the Scottish Government can use ring-fenced funding for what it wants to do, why shouldn’t we do the same, given the budget pressures that we are under?”?
