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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 831 contributions
|
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 17 January 2024
Alasdair Allan
Are there any budgets outwith those that you can say anything about that are relevant to the Government’s aims for the islands?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 17 January 2024
Alasdair Allan
Given that the Government is working with a fixed budget, we are probably entering into a sterile debate if we are asking, as some have, why you did not argue for more from health to go into agriculture. No doubt, as we speak, there are Opposition members or other committees asking a minister why they were not arguing for more to be taken from agriculture to be put into health.
Instead, I will ask about the issue of long-term certainty that you alluded to and how there will be less of that in the environment ahead. What is the impact of that on budgeting decisions on agriculture?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2024-25
Meeting date: 17 January 2024
Alasdair Allan
I will ask first about funding for the islands programme. It is welcome that, despite the capital climate, there is capital spend available, but can you say more about the budget lines and how they are being utilised for the islands programme, please?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alasdair Allan
The convener raised a point about “have regard to”. When it comes to the rural support plan, what should ministers have regard to? I have asked this in a previous context and I know that there is a well-understood legal meaning of “have regard to”, but what is your understanding of that? What should be had regard to and how should that be made enforceable?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 20 December 2023
Alasdair Allan
As others have alluded, we are talking about half the picture. We are talking about the primary legislation but, obviously, there is secondary legislation to come, which will fill out much of the detail.
I am interested in how progress against the objectives can be measured. What could be done in either primary or secondary legislation to help to measure progress and ensure that we evaluate the Government’s progress against the objectives?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Alasdair Allan
I want to ask Jonnie Hall to build on some of his earlier points about the link between production and support. I appreciate that it is a link, not a tie. However, we heard earlier from Lesley Mitchell about the regime that is likely to exist for, say, English hill farmers, so there is a distinction in policy being made, or likely to be made, in the two countries. How do we ensure that we can act in a way that meets Scottish needs on this and that we are not pressured into doing something that breaks that link completely in the way that may be happening in England?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Alasdair Allan
Before you do, convener, I just want to come in, as that point of view could go unchallenged. As we have heard, it is quite useful to put many things into secondary, rather than primary, legislation. The point is not a statement that should go unchallenged.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Alasdair Allan
Jonnie Hall, on your point about the importance of producing food, you have highlighted to us in the past the importance of the connection between support and production. Can you say a bit more about that with regard to producing quality food for the country? Other places have gone down a different route and broken that connection. In the past, you have mentioned the need to ensure that the Subsidy Control Act 2022 does not frustrate us in pursuing a different path or ploughing a different furrow. Will you say a bit more about the connection between support and production and what scope there is for Scotland to do something different?
09:30Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 December 2023
Alasdair Allan
A few people have touched on the difficulties that farmers have in transforming what they do for want of information about the support that they might receive or the adequacy of such support. Do people have views on the other bit of that, which is that the Scottish Government and, more important, Scottish farmers have no idea what the funding envelope from the UK will be beyond 2025? How does that impact on farmers’ thinking and decision making?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 6 December 2023
Alasdair Allan
For clarity, I do not know whether other members have had much of a chance to speak yet—some have—but I was wanting in; I make that point.
I want to ask about the definition of sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices. I realise that others have touched on that and we have talked around it in the context of other legislation, too. There is a balancing act between putting definitions in the bill and being flexible in order to avoid omissions from that list and the Government having to continually come back to the Parliament to change the legislation every time that there is a demand for it to do something new. How do we get that balance right when defining sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices in the bill?
