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
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 10 March 2022
Jenni Minto
We also took evidence from the consul general about the sanctions that are being imposed on Russia. I am interested to hear a bit more about the Scottish Government’s position on that.
Last night we passed the legislative consent motion on the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill, which is passing through Westminster. I have had constituents get in touch with me about shell companies laundering money, on which I appreciate the power is reserved, but also about businesses trading with Russia and how we can change their situations, or encourage them to do so.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jenni Minto
You said in your previous answers that you listened to stakeholders, including the scientists, fishers and environmentalists. You also said that you acknowledged different positions on the issue and took action according to those views and the evidence. What lessons would you draw from the process and look to apply in the future?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jenni Minto
Mr Gibb, you mentioned that you are doing a piece of work that involves looking at the records of your vessels and discussing with the fishers how to marry the two up. Could you expand on that, please?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jenni Minto
I am pleased to hear that.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jenni Minto
It sounds as though that would pull together all the different voices to get a much more balanced approach in advising the Government what its policy should be.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jenni Minto
I have found this process incredibly difficult. I represent Argyll and Bute, which is one of the constituencies that are impacted by the decision. I have thought long and hard about this. I have spoken to all the communities that are impacted, and it is clear that we have to strike the right balance between sustainability of stocks and sustainability of communities. What the Government and Marine Scotland have done in relation to the process could have been better, but they have listened to what stakeholders have said.
I agree entirely with what my colleague Ariane Burgess said about ensuring that we continue to pull the right people around the table and listen to them. I appreciate that there are polarised views, but we have to come to some agreement and strike the right balance to ensure the sustainability of the fish and the communities. I will vote against the motion to annul.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jenni Minto
I am interested to hear how the Scottish Government could improve current scientific evidence, data collection and monitoring to support future closures and inshore fisheries management more widely. Moving on a wee bit, we have heard a bit about evidence collection. Scientific research costs money, so I am interested to know what additional resources the Scottish Government would benefit from being allocated in relation to its ability to support opportunities for future research.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 9 March 2022
Jenni Minto
Would Dr Needle like to add a bit more on the University of Stirling PhD work and collaboration with fishers?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 3 March 2022
Jenni Minto
Thank you, Sarah, for coming along. It must be quite daunting to be the only person on the panel, so congratulations for being here.
To follow on from Donald Cameron’s questions, I am also interested in the SPRING project. Healthy Options Oban, which is in my constituency, is involved in the project and does fantastic work.
You talked a bit about collaboration. Can you give us any more information about the fact that the project is a collaboration between Scottish and Northern Irish groups and how that has worked? Perhaps there is something that we can learn from the fact that the funding is coming from different sources.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 3 March 2022
Jenni Minto
Thank you.