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 2089 contributions
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
Thank you very much. That was pretty much the answer that we gave to my constituents. I am glad that you have confirmed the position.
The final issue that I want to ask about is seasonal agricultural workers. What are the current restrictions on seasonal agricultural workers who come into the country? Are those restrictions adequate?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
I thank the panellists very much for coming to the meeting.
For the understanding of people who are watching this, we are talking about international travel—that is what the session is based on—and a lot of the regulations that we are speaking about are retrospective. The convener and I, as new members, were not here when many of the regulations were put in place, so my questions are retrospective, too. One question in particular is aimed more at Jason Leitch than it is at the cabinet secretary.
Where are we in relation to seafarers and oil workers? I ask about them separately, because there seem to be different regulations, depending on when they come back. I have constituents who are oil workers who are asking particularly about going to the North Sea. They go to the Norwegian sector—to an environment that is among the safest in the world—and they are tested before they go out, when they arrive and before they come back. However, they were still required to self-isolate for 10 days. Is that still the case? If it is, why?
What is the position with seafarers? I understand that, given that they come back from multiple parts of the world, the situation for them might be slightly more tricky, but will you give us an update on their position?
I will have another couple of questions after those questions have been answered.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
You gave a broad outline of what the new agriculture bill that will be introduced is about. What do you hope to achieve and what is its purpose, specifically in relation to food production? In addition, what will the conditionality on support look like in relation to the balance between environmental benefits and food production? What do you hope to achieve with the new agricultural subsidy system?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
You have said that there will be a 50:50 balance regarding environmental benefits and food production. My understanding is that that approach differs radically from that in the UK Agriculture Act 2020. If we have a different agricultural policy in Scotland, does that put us on a collision course with the UK Government and the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
I am aware that I am taking up a lot of time, but I have two more brief questions for the cabinet secretary.
First, the NFU has written to Kevin Foster to ask for a 12-month Covid recovery visa. Do you know whether it has received a response? Have you had any communication with the UK Government in order to get that visa put in place?
I have only just learned about the second thing that I want to ask you about. There is something in the new programme for government about the living wage for agricultural workers. The Agricultural Wages (Scotland) Order (No 68) 2021 takes agricultural wages well above the minimum wage. I do not know where the balance is. Will the order be scrapped, or is there something else that we do not know about at this stage?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
Again, I apologise to Ariane Burgess—I do not want to steal her position here—but I visited a regenerative farm that is working very closely with Soil Association Scotland, which appreciates that there are slight differences in this matter. I encourage the cabinet secretary to have a word with Soil Association Scotland on what it is doing on the regenerative side of things.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
I am sorry to keep coming back to you, cabinet secretary, but, given the size of Scotland’s food and drink industry, it is vital that we look at that area in detail. This might not be the right meeting in which to do that, but there are a couple of issues that I want to raise.
Where is the food and drink recovery plan going? What will have to be done in that respect? I know that 60 food and drink businesses have signed up to the business development academy and that every major industry body has signed up to delivering it, but I want to ask about the proposed sustainably Scottish brand. What does it mean? What will it deliver? Where does it fit in? How will our current brands fit in with it? How will we define “sustainably Scottish”?
I know that that is a packed question, but it would be helpful if you could give us a broad overview of your thinking on some of those issues.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
The NFU wrote to Kevin Foster, who is the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Future Borders and Immigration), to ask for a 12-month Covid visa in order to get over the short-term supply chain workforce issues in the agricultural sector. Do you know whether that visa has been granted? Have you had any communication with the UK Government about that?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
I would like us to come back to the sustainably Scottish brand at some point, because we have brands that sit within the Scotch brand. Where will they fit in? Are we going to absorb them into the sustainably Scottish brand? We need to drill into that, and I would appreciate our being able to come back to that in the future.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
It is clear from that that we need to keep a very close eye on where divergences are going to be and where we could be brought into conflict with the UK Government as the policies develop. Is it fair to say that?