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 514 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
Those maths do not really work for a small farm that has lost 5 to 10 per cent of its income because of this system. Having a slightly higher level of payment for the rest of the calves does not make up for that. I am not asking for every circumstance in which the force majeure process might apply; I am asking how the process is triggered. How can a farmer who is faced with a situation that will be devastating to their business go to the Government and say, “I need you to look at this”?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
Have you spoken to the Scottish Crofting Federation about that, as well? It will impact more of its members than NFUS members.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
I have concerns about that, because it tends to work against small herds, especially those on poorer land. Grass-fed animals are a better carbon sink, so this one-size-fits-all policy will create more carbon emissions in some areas, as well as welfare issues for cattle that are not ready to breed. Farmers might be forced to have them breed, because they would otherwise lose out on the money. Has the minister given any thought to derogations for small herds and herds on more difficult land, so that practices that are much more nature-friendly are not be shut out of the scheme, which would be an unintended consequence that nobody would want?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
I will push you further on that point, because it is a really important consideration for me in deciding whether to support the instrument. How can someone raise concerns? I am not asking you to go into every possible circumstance in which there could be a derogation, but this issue could be the difference in relation to whether a herd can continue. How can someone trigger the process to get the Government to look again at the matter, and how quickly can that happen? For example, if, this year, we end up with a number of small farms that cannot meet the requirement, how can someone get the Government to look at that and get the derogation in place? Those small farms do not have the ability to wait it out.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
There are concerns, though, that native breeds and the like have a longer gestation period, and that the regulation could work against them. Waiting to see whether small farmers who are breeding cattle go out of business to determine whether the scheme is working is counterproductive because, once those animals are gone, they are gone, and we would be looking to force farmers to slaughter cattle way before they should be. While the cattle are alive, they are a carbon sink.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 20 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
I have one point of clarification. Is it the case that, if we do not agree to the instrument today, the scheme will continue but without the new conditions being applied?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming in Scotland
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
We spoke earlier about microjellyfish and the like. When we visited fish farms, we spoke about what actions are taken to avoid microjellyfish. Would it be possible to have the ability to move fish farm cages? When microjellyfish in the area were coming towards a fish farm, would it be possible to move that fish farm? Given that planning consent and where to put the fish farms is so complex, could there be the ability to move them in an emergency? We have heard about fish being moved but, if the farm could be moved, that might be less traumatic for the fish.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming in Scotland
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
On that theme, we are aware that jobs are hard to find in rural areas, and that the jobs provided by fish farms can have an economic benefit in allowing people to remain in rural areas. What consideration is given to that when looking at planning consents for fish farms?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming in Scotland
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
The discussion is quite interesting—nobody knew that the situation with microjellyfish was going to happen, and that had an absolutely devastating impact on fish farming. It was equivalent to foot-and-mouth disease, but people may not understand that. With foot-and-mouth, people saw at first hand what was going on, but they did not see the devastation from the microjellyfish and the impact that that had on those working in fish farms, or indeed the on-going impact that it is having on folk down the line in the processing industry, who have lost their jobs.
We have talked a bit about what the industry can do in looking at where the next threats are coming from. I wonder what the Government is doing to support industry in that, and what Government foresees as being the issues, because we need to be ready for those. There was understanding of the microjellyfish issue within a year, and of how to farm around it, and there are perhaps other things that we could do to mitigate the impact even further. However, what are the new threats, and what action are we taking to avoid them?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming in Scotland
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
As a response to the Griggs review and concerns from the industry, the Scottish Government set up the consenting task group. What progress has it made in streamlining the consenting process?
