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 514 contributions
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Rhoda Grant
Section 5(6) provides that Scottish ministers do not need to publish a revised code of practice if they
“consider that none of the revisions materially alters the effect of the code of practice.”
My amendment 72 would remove that section from the bill, having the effect that any revised code of practice would have to be published and made available to the public. I am grateful for Government support for the amendment.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Rhoda Grant
I would be willing to withdraw amendment 64 and to hold off until stage 3 if the minister is willing to have some discussion on these points to tidy up the bill.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Rhoda Grant
My understanding of what the minister said is that none of that is legally binding other than if it is put in the bill. Those bits are being removed because they would become crucial and people would have to comply with them or people would not comply with the code.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Rhoda Grant
Would you agree that SEPA is better placed than Marine Scotland?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Rhoda Grant
Do you feel that things are okay as they are, with SEPA apparently taking a lead, or do you believe that the role should be given to local authorities? Do local authorities have the most important part of the consenting process?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Rhoda Grant
Are you saying that we have more to gain through the system that we have in place rather than trying to streamline further, because we would lose elements if we did that?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Rhoda Grant
Okay. Rachel, would you agree with that?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Rhoda Grant
This group of amendments deals with minor and technical aspects of the proposed legislation.
The first four amendments are technical adjustments to the bill’s wording. My amendments, which were proposed by the Law Society of Scotland, seek to change certain phrases such as “is to” and “are then to” to “must”, to make the bill clearer and make it easier for members of the public to understand its requirements and intentions. They would remove ambiguity and strengthen the bill.
On amendment 54, section 12, on interpretation of the legislation, sets out definitions covering central aspects of the bill, such as the word “advertise” and the phrases “first owner” and “police officer”. The intention of the section is to define the meaning of those terms, but amendment 54 seeks to remove it entirely.
My amendments in this group seek to ensure that the bill is implemented as intended and to remove ambiguity of language and clear up interpretation. I ask members to support my amendments at this time.
I move amendment 64.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Rhoda Grant
I query why a requirement for an email address should be included in the bill. Not everyone has an email address, and I wonder whether the member would consider removing that at stage 3 in case it prohibits anyone from fulfilling the terms of the bill.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Rhoda Grant
I am a bit concerned about the instrument. I wonder whether an island communities impact assessment has been carried out. There is a move to get micro abattoirs on to our islands, although they may not be there yet. I wonder whether the costs that are associated with the instrument would make that a more distant hope.