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
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Rhoda Grant
What tools do you have to take action in that regard? We do not have licensing at the moment. Could planning permission be denied? How could you influence whether one opened?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Rhoda Grant
There is no drug testing at Thornton either, so we do not know if there is any substance misuse there.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Rhoda Grant
Okay. So, you have given it no thought.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Rhoda Grant
Amendment 76 will ensure that, before making regulations under section 13, the Scottish ministers must consult such persons as they consider
“to be interested in or affected by provisions in this section”,
rather than simply those the Government deems appropriate.
Amendment 80 will ensure that grazing committees and, indeed, other co-ops can be collectively supported. Many crofting activities are carried out as part of a collective. Currently, it is difficult to access funding on that basis. It is important to allow individuals who are part of a grazing committee or co-op to apply for support in their own right under a different claim—obviously claiming only once for any activity. That would allow them more access to environmental funding when, collectively, they would be better able to compete against large land holdings, for which support is dependent on the number of features protected. Those with small crofts or farms have often been locked out of environmental support projects because of that, and amendment 80 attempts to right that wrong.
Beatrice Wishart’s amendment 171 seeks to do something similar to my amendment 76, and I will listen to the thoughts of the committee and the cabinet secretary. I hope that there will be support for one of those two amendments.
Amendment 81 is consequential on amendment 80.
I move amendment 76.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Rhoda Grant
The cabinet secretary is surely aware that an awful lot of trees are being planted in the wrong places, on good arable land. We need to do something about that. Obviously, we cannot do everything about it through the bill, but we can stop public money going to support that activity. Will the cabinet secretary meet me prior to stage 3 to try to find a way of stopping public money being used to support that wrong activity?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Rhoda Grant
Colin Smyth sends his apologies. He has to attend another committee meeting, so I have agreed to speak to his amendments.
Colin Smyth’s amendment 135 would require support schemes to be consistent with the rural support plan. The Government has a responsibility to spend money effectively and in the public interest. A link with the rural support plan would allow it to demonstrate a clear rationale for the use of public money. However, the amendment would also provide flexibility and allow for departure from the plan, should there be reasons for that, but with the requirement that ministers set out those reasons and why the support remained consistent with the bill’s overall objectives.
My amendment 50 would ensure that the Scottish Government would have to consult before making regulations under section 4 to amend schedule 1. Schedule 1 lays out the things that can be supported under the bill. Although members may, at this stage, seek to add items that can be supported, the Government will be able to add other items in the future. I will not repeat my arguments for greater scrutiny. However, amendment 50 would ensure that, when items were added or, indeed, taken away, there would be effective consultation with those who would be affected by any changes that were made to the schedule.
I support Rachael Hamilton’s amendment 134. Farming is not a short-term business, and security of support is necessary to enable farmers and crofters to provide the public goods that we all require. I believe that the other amendments in the group could also strengthen the bill.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Rhoda Grant
I have taken on board the assurances that the cabinet secretary has provided, so I will seek to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment 73, by agreement, withdrawn.
Section 12 agreed to.
Section 13—Regulations about support
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Rhoda Grant
Amendment 72 seeks to ensure that people who claim support know the expectations that are placed on them in return for that support before they apply. The amendment ensures that the reasons why support could be refused or recovered in the public interest are clear to all those who apply.
I believe that there are times when Government should recover support that has been paid. I therefore cannot support Edward Mountain’s amendment 169, but I believe that the reasons for doing so must be understood.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Rhoda Grant
I have nothing to add. I have listened to what the cabinet secretary has said and will not press amendment 82.
Amendment 82, by agreement, withdrawn.
Amendments 13 and 83 not moved.
Section 17 agreed to.
Section 18—Processing of information
Amendments 14 and 15 moved—[Mairi Gougeon]—and agreed to.
Amendment 184 not moved.
Section 18, as amended, agreed to.
Sections 19 to 25 agreed to.
After section 25
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Rhoda Grant
On that matter, would there be a delay? If you are using that power, there are pretty exceptional market conditions and people are quite concerned. If there was a delay between the initial three months and an extension of that scheme under the powers allowed, that could cause issues for those who are really dependent on that support.
