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 367 contributions
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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
Is sport predator control?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
Could there be a sort of relay flushing, with one dog flushing to another dog, then to another dog and finally to the shooter? How would you keep track of that mammal and know that it had come into contact with only two dogs?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
I have a follow-up question. I am concerned that the exemption in section 6 of the bill, which includes rough shooting, will undermine the wider purpose of the bill because, essentially, it allows for more than two dogs to be present during an activity that involves flushing wild mammals, whereas that is not permissible for flushing foxes.
The rationale seems to hang on the idea that, on a rough shoot, groups of more than two dogs can be prevented from forming a pack. I am interested in hearing a bit more about the evidence base for why that is possible in rough shooting circumstances but not when foxes are being flushed. Why, in one instance, is it believed that the level of control over dogs will prevent them from forming a pack, losing control and potentially killing the animal whereas, when foxes are involved, the claim is that it is not possible to control dogs and prevent a pack from forming? To an outsider—I have not been on a shoot—it seems that foxes and rabbits are wild mammals. I am not clear on the distinction and the rationale behind the exemption.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
Given some of the correspondence that the committee has received, I suggest that, rather than take that decision today, we defer a decision on what we do next until next week, when we have a chance to discuss the work programme.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
I seek clarification. The Scottish Government’s stated aim is to pursue the highest possible animal welfare standards, so can we get an explanation as to why the bill has ended up having an exemption for sport? How does the Scottish Government square the hunting and killing of animals for sport with pursuing the highest possible animal welfare standards?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
I expect that we will come on to this in more detail later, when we discuss enforcement, but it sounds as though you are saying that, as long as there are enough humans present to have plausible deniability, we could continue to see packs of dogs flushing foxes, if people can say, “Each of us is here separately with one or two dogs.” Can you see how that might—
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Inshore Fisheries
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Mercedes Villalba
We have heard about the importance of ecosystems, which include people as well as nature, and we have heard about declining stocks and loss of vessels. Given the impact that climate change is having on inshore fisheries, I am interested in hearing from the panel—perhaps Charles Millar could kick us off—about any tangible things that we can do to support and promote low-impact fishing methods, to ensure that we have a just transition away from the high-impact methods.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Mercedes Villalba
The reclassification of blueberry rust from the list of quarantine pests in the list of regulated non-quarantine pests suggests to me that controls on that pest have been ineffective as it has moved from being a pest that is largely absent from a territory to being one that is already present in the territory with measures in place to minimise its spread. I am interested in receiving any data on the rising prevalence of the pest and any analysis of what has led to its spread, and in hearing what steps the relevant ministers and Governments are taking to control and eradicate it.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Inshore Fisheries
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Mercedes Villalba
Good morning. I am Mercedes Villalba and I represent the North East Scotland region.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Inshore Fisheries
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Mercedes Villalba
Following on from the discussion about the difficulties of developing a skilled worker visa—and thinking about the comments about local workforce challenges—I wonder whether there is the potential to develop for the local workforce a skills pathway for aspiring fishers in Scotland. What would be required to do that, and has the Government engaged with any of your organisations on developing that kind of vocational pathway?
