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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 772 contributions
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
My questions have been answered, too. As I represent Argyll and Bute, I was very interested to hear those comments about regionalisation and making things fit for purpose for different types of farming.
If it is okay, convener, I will move on to the next section of questions.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
Thank you.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
I have one very quick question. We have been focusing on trying to maintain different bird species across Scotland, but do you have any thoughts on plants? There are, for example, rare orchids in my constituency. What about the impacts that agricultural reform will have on them and on insects such as the marsh fritillary?
11:00Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
That is an interesting way of looking at it: they are not less favourable areas, but areas that can create great biodiversity and that can be used for carbon sequestration. The other important thing that I should mention is the sustainability of the rural population, which must be built into the thinking on all of this.
If the convener does not stop me from doing so, I want to ask specifically about the geese payments and where you see them fitting into the tiers, if at all.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2023
Jenni Minto
Yesterday, as you will all know, was international women’s day. I said in the chamber:
“looking back and learning are essential to moving forward.”—[Official Report, 8 March 2023; c 45]
You have given us a lot of evidence about your experience in the civil service, and it has been absolutely fascinating. I was struck by the phrase “assertive and muscular unionism”. I apologise because I did not write down who said it, but I am interested to hear your thoughts on whether there is anything in the way in which the Windsor framework came about that can be learned from, in moving forward post devolution. Moreover, is there anything that we can learn from Norway or Switzerland about how things are constructed, as a way in which to improve relationships across Parliaments and Governments in the United Kingdom?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Jenni Minto
I think that my question falls into this topic of conversation, convener. I am interested in hearing people’s views on the monitor farms and how they are feeding into the ARIOB process. Also—I should have asked this the last time—what have you been doing to ensure that tenant farmers are included in the way forward?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Jenni Minto
I thank the panel, and I thank Kate Rowell for that last comment.
I represent Argyll and Bute, which has mixed farming. One of the key things in farming throughout Argyll and Bute, and certainly on the islands, is the sustainability of population and how the investment—I think that that is the right term to use—connects much more to the wider community.
Martin Kennedy, you talked about LFASS. I wonder whether you could expand a bit on what the ARIOB is advising with regard to LFASS payments. [Interruption.] Sorry—I am getting noises off from a sedentary position. I would also like to know how you have been looking at ensuring that population is sustainable across Scotland and at the interconnectivity of farming from the west coast to the east coast. It is a big question.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 8 March 2023
Jenni Minto
I asked about the interconnections between east and west.
09:45Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 2 March 2023
Jenni Minto
I presume that you have had specific discussions about the amount of time for which you can play music? Are you allowed to put 30-second inserts into podcasts or can they be longer? How are those discussions going?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 2 March 2023
Jenni Minto
My apologies.