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 772 contributions
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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Jenni Minto
I would like you to expand on that. In the constituency that I represent, such work is done not by foot packs but by groups of farmers getting together. There are concerns that having a window of only 14 days might not work. Also, as Rachael Hamilton said, there is a difference between a larger organisation such as the RSPB, which would, in the stoat example, be able to apply for a two-year licence, and farmers who have to do such work much more regularly to manage the welfare of their livestock without—as they might argue—the resources of a larger organisation.
That goes back to my earlier point about remembering that we are not one Scotland. There are lots of different needs across Scotland.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Jenni Minto
Are you saying that it supports the welfare of the injured deer to put them out of their suffering as humanely as possible?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Jenni Minto
I will briefly continue with the same line of questioning, because concerns have been raised with me, too, about the licensing system.
People accept that there has to be a balance. The application process for a licence needs to be difficult enough to prevent people from abusing the licensing system but easy enough for farmers to use at an incredibly busy time, as Jim Fairlie said.
We also need to listen to the different needs across Scotland. Not everybody walks their dog in a park, for example; they could be walking their dog in a woodland and raise a hare or a rabbit. It is about recognising that, across Scotland, there are different terrains and people have different ways of working.
I am continuing on from Jim Fairlie’s plea about the need to listen to the welfare needs of farmers and to balance those with the needs of animals.
My question is specifically on section 3(3)(e), on bringing in birds of prey to kill wild mammals. I am interested to know what you had in mind when you were writing that part of the legislation.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Jenni Minto
I suppose that “as soon as possible” is a clear statement, but if “reasonably” has been used to align the bill with other acts, that is reasonable.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Jenni Minto
Further to my questions about using birds, I note that Leia Fitzgerald highlighted the exceptions with regard to falconry. I am interested to hear the reasons behind the exceptions for game shooting and deer stalking and how the way that dogs are used in those contexts makes them exceptions.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Jenni Minto
Thank you for that clarification.
Section 3(3)(e) finishes with the phrase,
“as soon as reasonably possible,”
whereas I believe that, in the 2002 act, there was a mixture of “as soon as possible” and “once it is safe to do so”. I am interested in why “reasonably” has been inserted.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Trade and Co-operation Agreement
Meeting date: 26 May 2022
Jenni Minto
I was going to ask about information flow, but you have already talked about accountability, transparency and scrutiny in quite a bit of detail, especially in response to my colleague Sarah Boyack’s question about retrofitting.
What have we learned about the TCA? Will its governance structures be considered in other agreements, such as trade agreements? How can the Scottish Parliament get involved? What can we learn from our experience of the TCA? What could be improved on?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Trade and Co-operation Agreement
Meeting date: 26 May 2022
Jenni Minto
Thank you.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Trade and Co-operation Agreement
Meeting date: 26 May 2022
Jenni Minto
That ties in with Dr Zuleeg’s comment about the soft power in the relationships that we can continue. Professor Eckes, do you have anything to add?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Trade and Co-operation Agreement
Meeting date: 26 May 2022
Jenni Minto
Perhaps that ties in with the need for better co-ordination between the committees and Parliaments across the UK, and the committee’s meeting our equivalents in Northern Ireland and Wales. Earlier this week, some of us met Westminster’s Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.
