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 5030 contributions
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Did you want to ask another question?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Great. I will bring in Willie Coffey.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Councillor Heddle, do you have any response to any of the questions?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Do you have anything to add, Councillor Heddle?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 5 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Thanks for underscoring the fact that it is difficult to argue against the three priorities.
Mr FitzPatrick suggested that Ellen Leaver and Sarah Watters might want to come in with a bit more detail, so I will start with Ellen. One of my challenges in facilitating the meeting is that I tend to go to the people in the room, but I am mindful about the need to go to people online. However, first I will go to Ellen, who is in the room, and then to Sarah.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Ariane Burgess
I will broaden out the discussion on the topic of licensing. Good morning, minister—it has been a really engaging session so far.
Professor Newton mentioned that one reason why the Werritty group recommended licensing of grouse moors was to
“fill an important evidence gap in relation to land use in Scotland”.—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 14 June 2023; c 12.]
He said that that could be done by requiring annual information to be returned on the number of animals killed of all species.
Alex Hogg said that the Scottish Gamekeepers Association would agree with that, and Ross Ewing from Scottish Land & Estates said that such information is already being collected, although it is not reported. I am interested in whether the Government will introduce such a requirement or recommend that NatureScot does so.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Ariane Burgess
I would be interested in hearing whether the minister agrees with Scottish Government officials that the proposed grouse moor licensing system is compliant with the European convention on human rights. What is your response to stakeholders who claim that it is not?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Ariane Burgess
I thoroughly welcome yesterday’s announcement that the Scottish Government will lodge amendments at stage 2 to expand the SSPCA’s powers. Green colleagues have been campaigning for that for many years now.
At the end of the letter that was sent to the committee yesterday, it says that the amendments will be lodged after “further consultation with stakeholders”. Who are you going to be consulting and what kind of questions will you be asking them?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Ariane Burgess
I also asked whether you would be willing to commission further research on how peatlands and those maturer landscapes can act as natural firebreaks.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Ariane Burgess
Thank you.