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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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Màiri McAllan
I have not spoken with Police Scotland since the committee’s round-table meeting; I am not sure whether officials have done so. We have been in contact with Police Scotland since the bill was introduced and we have been able to clarify certain points—for example, about the training of police dogs. I think that you raised that point in the stage 1 debate. We will continue to discuss with Police Scotland how to create the best possible enforcement situation. This is an odd situation whereby we are having this helpful but nonetheless extraordinary evidence session. I will certainly engage on that again prior to stage 2 proceedings.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Màiri McAllan
That would be a question for the police. I am not proposing any enforcement powers within the bill that are additional to those that already exist in legislation to manage those activities in the countryside. Ultimately, how the police respond to complaints—vexatious or otherwise—is always a matter for them.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Màiri McAllan
For me, that would create an inconsistency in policy terms, but I can understand and see why that would be an easier situation for the police evidence-wise. Although I will not put words in the mouth of Police Scotland, I suspect that its concerns about the position as it stands, some of which were expressed last week, relate to the belief that a two-dog limit per event would be easier for the police. Would that be proportionate for the rough shooters? I do not think that it would. Would it create inconsistencies in the bill? Yes. However, things would certainly be easier evidentially.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Màiri McAllan
Of course, in some ways that is hypothetical, but, equally, nobody talked about flushing to guns prior to 2002. We have proof that, after the 2002 act—I know that this was discussed in your round-table session—that became a cover for illegal hunting, so there is form in that regard.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Màiri McAllan
I am not sure that I can answer that.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Màiri McAllan
I have said that that would be unlawful.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Màiri McAllan
Scottish ministers will not direct Police Scotland on how to conduct its investigations.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Màiri McAllan
No. That would be four dogs for one activity. If they worked separately and pursued individual quarry, or if the dogs did not work together, that would be fine.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Màiri McAllan
Thank you for the question. On the first part of it, yes, I believe that there will be an improvement—I certainly hope that there will be. As we have discussed in relation to including rabbits, Police Scotland and others have told us that, when they are trying to gather evidence on hare coursing, they find that shooting rabbits is often used as a guise. Therefore, it should follow that, by bringing rabbits within the scope of the bill, that guise will no longer exist, which will ease the detection of crime on the part of Police Scotland.
In terms of the impact of the bill, as with other bits of legislation, the Scottish Government will track its success and the impact that it has. I do not know whether there is anything specific on the face of the bill in that regard, but the Government will always track the impact of what it does.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Màiri McAllan
Those are utterly hypothetical questions. Ultimately, it is for the police, whom I have confidence in, to observe what is happening in the countryside and determine what it is. Of course, I want that to be as clear as possible, but I will not entertain increasingly hypothetical situations.
