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, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Jenni Minto
I will change topic ever so slightly. Last night, we were at a British Veterinary Association dinner. Justine Shotton, its president, talked about the sustainability of the veterinary workforce as a result of Brexit—recruitment and retention issues and the pressures that vets are being put under because of vet certification. As a result of Covid, a lot more people have pets, and as a result of leaving Europe there are different requirements for pets that are travelling. What is the UK Government doing to support the recruitment of vets into the United Kingdom? I recognise that Scotland also has its own responsibility for that.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Jenni Minto
It is fair to say that the CEEAC Committee recognised that there are significant differences between the market access principles in UKIMA and in the EU single market. In particular, the list of exclusions on public interest grounds from the application of the mutual recognition principle is much narrower in UKIMA. There are differences that impact on devolved competences.
We also took evidence from stakeholders outwith Parliament on various changes in legislation. For example, Scottish Environment LINK said:
“there has been little to no stakeholder engagement on any environmental common frameworks”.
We had something similar from NFU Scotland, which said that it had “not been entirely sighted” on the common frameworks.
How can we, as legislators across the United Kingdom, ensure that we engage stakeholders who have appropriate evidence and views on how we move forward in our post-EU-exit circumstances?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Jenni Minto
I welcome that comment, but I make a plea to you to understand that the Scottish Parliament, too, has procedures, so the late laying of SIs has an impact on the ability of the Scottish Parliament and this committee to scrutinise new legislation being introduced by Westminster.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Jenni Minto
As Mr Fairlie has said, we will wait and see how it turns out.
With regard to the common frameworks, one of the key elements of evidence that came in for the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee’s internal markets inquiry was about the risk of the shift towards intergovernmental working reducing
“democratic oversight of the Executive and a less consultative policy-making process.”
Professor Nicola McEwen noted:
“Parliamentary committees in every UK legislature have called for greater transparency and greater oversight … not least in light of its increased importance in the context of both Brexit and Covid.”
How do you plan to engage more with parliamentary legislators when you come up with new policies and new ways of working?
09:30Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Jenni Minto
That moves us on to a report that our Economy and Fair Work Committee carried out on the supply chain. It looked at—
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Jenni Minto
Thank you for recognising the world renown of Scottish seed potatoes. I am interested in the proposals regarding Northern Ireland and in how the current discussions on the Northern Ireland protocol might have an impact.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Jenni Minto
I have a quick question on the impact that Brexit has had on seed potato farmers in Scotland. What is the UK Government doing to alleviate the issues? Might that involve considering where farmers in the UK source their seed potatoes?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Jenni Minto
Thank you for joining us, Mr Eustice. I want to expand on the points that my colleague Mr Fairlie made. When the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, on which I sit, took evidence from Dr McCorkindale, he suggested that
“two important constitutional considerations ... arise from the Subsidy Control Bill”.
First,
“there are additional powers by which the UK Government might intervene with regard to the exercise of executive power by Scottish Ministers”,
such as calling in subsidies or referring them to the Competition and Markets Authority, whereas Scottish ministers and other devolved Administrations do not have equivalent powers. Secondly, he talked about the extent to which the bill
“constrains the scope of existing and future devolved executive power.”
Can you can comment on those findings?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 11 May 2022
Jenni Minto
As Ariane Burgess said, the bill, as introduced, requires Scottish ministers and relevant authorities to
“have regard ... to the scope for food-related issues to affect”
matters that are listed in sections 1(5) and 7(6). Those matters currently include social and economic wellbeing, the environment, health and economic development.
My amendments 37 and 51 would add animal welfare to the lists, and amendments 36 and 50 would expand the outcome of health, such that it would read:
“health and physical and mental wellbeing (including in particular through the provision of health and social care services)”.
My amendments reflect evidence that was given to the committee at stage 1 that there should be specific reference to animal welfare and to all types of health, as well as to the impacts on the provision of health and social care in the lists of outcomes. I believe that my amendments address those concerns and I therefore urge the committee to support the amendments in my name.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 4 May 2022
Jenni Minto
In your introduction, you mentioned the impact of Covid-19 on island communities. Like the whole of Scotland and the rest of the world, we have had negative impacts, but important lessons have been learned, with islanders recognising their resilience.
Last week, I was at a Community Land Scotland event that involved considering how asset management and asset ownership help communities to pull together and find solutions. That is really positive but, on the flipside, when I visit islands, I often hear concerns that other stakeholders that are incorporated into the way that islands operate perhaps put up barriers to prevent innovative ideas from coming from islanders. What can the Scottish Government and the islands team do to help to reduce that?