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 450 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Christine Grahame
Yes.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Christine Grahame
That is because I started with registration, and microchipping was nowhere on the horizon. Nothing had happened since the microchipping legislation came in, so I started with registration. If registration is cumbersome, as the Government claims, and it is now discussing and pushing microchipping, that will make me happy. Either way, we will have a database, because every puppy aged eight weeks and over will have to be microchipped. A national database of dogs is a beginning. There is a lot of information on the microchip, so that is fine by me. If registration is cumbersome and we are walking down the road to a national microchipping database, that is grand. Although I wanted registration, part 2 of the bill will have served the important purpose of creating a national database.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Christine Grahame
Let us flip that a bit. In the main, suppliers will be more aware of the requirements, but both the supplier and the buyer must sign the certificate and both must be aware of the responsibilities under the certificate.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Christine Grahame
Bear with me—I think that I am being supported.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Christine Grahame
I refer to page 11 of the financial memorandum. Paragraph 61 details that there is
“an estimated cost of £21,500 to the Scottish Ministers to establish the register and £16,000 per annum to maintain the register”.
It also says:
“There may also be a cost to the Scottish Ministers of producing guidance; this is expected to be minimal and met from existing budgets”.
It lists a range of things that would fall under those costs, including publicity, and the details of other potential costs. Of course, in terms of local government funding and central Government funding, we are talking about gross costs. I was cut off in my prime earlier with regard to net costs, but it is important to note that abandoned animals and animals that behave badly represent a cost to the public purse—for example, there is a cost to local authorities in the policing of those issues. Some local authorities indicated in their submissions that they could see the benefit of educating the public to be aware before they get a pet, as there would be less pressure on them from dogs that are out of control and so on because we would have nipped the problem in the bud at the beginning by making sure that the animal is in the right place with the right person at the right time.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Christine Grahame
There is the first transfer, which would be at the puppy stage. If you look at the sections of the bill, you will see that section 2, which is on the sale or transfer of any dog, is a way to ensure that, if somebody were to acquire a dog at the puppy stage from a breeder—an unlicensed breeder, I hasten to add, not a licensed breeder—they would have to go through that process and complete the certificate. They might then move the puppy on to someone else, and they would then have to go through the process again, which is covered in section 3 on the sale or transfer of any dog by its first owner.
Part of the thinking behind that is that you might have someone who would acquire a puppy from an unlicensed breeder, say that they have done the certificate, and then move the puppy on to somebody else. However, that situation would be caught under section 3, because they would still have to go through a list of questions and complete a certificate. It is about catching that bit from puppy to 12 months. If you just did it for puppies, there would be a kind of loophole, so that is what section 3 is for.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Christine Grahame
Paragraph 52 of the memorandum includes the costs in relation to the employment of an animal welfare officer and so on. As far as is practicable, we have looked at that, but I am conscious that I do not want to burden local authorities with additional costs when their budgets are pressured. That is why, as I said, I made the question of when and if to introduce a registration scheme a matter for the discretion of the Scottish Government.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Christine Grahame
We know that there will be some additional costs, but we would just be plucking figures from thin air, and I will not do that.
As I say, in the general picture of things, we are well aware of the costs—as well as the potential benefits—for local authorities. However, this is not the time—this year or next year—to burden them with additional costs when they have so much to deal with.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Christine Grahame
Yes.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Christine Grahame
That could be the case, but it is less likely. It might be that the person acquiring the dog is physically unable to go and sends someone in their place to see it. That is understandable. If somebody is highly disabled, somebody else can go for them and check it out, but, in the vast majority of cases, the person should see the puppy with the siblings and the mother, unless there are particular circumstances—I hesitate to use the word “exceptional”, but something close to that. In the main, the person must see the mother.
