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 692 contributions
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Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
Obviously, the landscape has a bearing, but we would say that the—
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
Yes. I value falconry in the same way as I value other cultural heritage, including sporting and recreational parts of Scottish culture. I accept that it is important to the people who practise it, and that there are economic advantages to its practice in the countryside.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
My colleague Hugh Dignon answered that point thoroughly in his previous response, which was about all the ways in which falconry can continue in Scotland, despite the change to the law.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
I have a couple of points to make in response to that. I do not accept that falcons can no longer be used because of the 2020 act. That goes back to Hugh Dignon’s description of the multitude of activities that can continue in Scotland with falcons. We have pointed to their being used for a whole range of quarry. We are talking only about mountain hares here, but they are used to take other species. Equally, in the case of mountain hares, they can still be used for purposes that are licensed.
That point is frequently put to me when it comes to legislation on wildlife management in the countryside. For example, I am asked what the impact is on dogs in relation to the hunting with dogs legislation and what the impact is on the falcon in relation to this legislation. I take that all into account.
You are right to point to the 2006 act. Under that legislation, the keeper of any animal has a responsibility to ensure that they do not cause it any unnecessary pain or suffering, and that they look after its welfare. That is still the case, regardless of other changes to the law.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
Hugh has indicated to me that he wishes to come in.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
I thank Mr Sweeney for his point, and I understand that that is the premise of the petition. As I have said, I will consider all suggestions and all the ways in which the legislation that we pass impacts on the people who are affected by it. However, my contention today is that the interference in the ability of falconers to take mountain hare—which I understand is an interference, albeit that, as Hugh Dignon has pointed out, that activity can still take place elsewhere, and falconers are still able to take other species—remains justified on the backdrop of the conservation concern for the mountain hare. Of course, I am very open to considering concerns.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
It is important that we reflect the situation accurately and that we use accurate language. You have just put it to me that I said earlier that none of the normal processes were followed, but that is simply not the case. What I said is that the business and regulatory impact assessment that we would normally have wanted to undertake was not possible because of the late stage of the amendment.
You have asked about what happened in practice. An amendment was lodged by a party that is not in Government and, as would normally happen, the Government considered how it would approach that amendment. Of course, the amendment being lodged at stage 3 means that it did not form part of the substantive scrutiny and debate that had taken place up to that point. When an amendment is put in front of the Scottish Government, the Government then responds by doing the research that we need to do into how we will respond to that amendment, including speaking with our statutory advisors. The conservation concerns that NatureScot put to us, together with the significant concerns of the public, brought us to the view that the amendment was acceptable and we would work with the industry thereafter to formalise the licensing scheme.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
Again, owing to the speed with which stage 3, when the amendment was lodged, happened, we were not able to do the normal statutory assessments of the amendment before the legislation was passed. However, NatureScot worked closely with a range of stakeholders in the aftermath of the bill’s passage to design the licensing scheme that went alongside protected status for the mountain hare. They included—I think—the Scottish Hawk Board and others.
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
The last part of your question really sets the context, because we are talking about mountain hares, which are the one quarry that is now protected owing to the change in the law. The rest of the spectrum of quarry that falconers can take is still available to them. I point out that, even despite the protected status of the mountain hare, hares can still be taken for licensable purposes. There are two examples to mention: falconers can still take mountain hare under licence, and they can take other quarry.
On that, I will pass over to Stan Whitaker from NatureScot, because I understand that some licences have been issued since the 1 March implementation date. He might give us a bit of insight into where the practice continues in Scotland.
09:45Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Continued Petitions
Meeting date: 21 December 2022
Màiri McAllan
The point is that, when the trees are young and vulnerable—
