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 831 contributions
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
Thank you. My final question is for Mr Johnson. You described how you must operate in the Brussels office in the post-Brexit landscape. Last week, as been mentioned, we spoke to David McAllister about the European Parliament. For very understandable and sound reasons, he was keen to say that the relationship between the European Parliament and our Parliament would have to be informal rather than formal. I take it that you are still operating in both informal and formal spheres?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
This question is perhaps for John Webster, first. As everyone knows, there are different models of Scotland’s representation around the world—from the SDI offices to co-location with UK embassies, as you have described. Scotland House is a distinctive model that operates from its own premises and on its own terms. Could you say a bit more about some of the things that are distinctive about Scotland House? In particular, I know that efforts were made pre-pandemic to bring businesses into the building and for it to have an open door.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
Good morning, Mr Hall, and welcome to the committee. You mentioned the issues that you have raised around the internal market act. Your written evidence says:
“NFU Scotland remains significantly concerned that the UK IMA 2020 could potentially override all Common Frameworks relating to agricultural support, environmental and animal welfare standards”.
On animal welfare standards and the production of meat, can you give any examples of how your concerns might be made manifest? What situations do you think might arise?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
You have asked my next question—where does that leave the agriculture industry? I use the example of meat. In the scenario where meat was produced to different welfare standards in England and the internal market act obliged that that meat to be made available on the market in Scotland, how would that affect farmers who were endeavouring to use a different standard in Scotland? What would the reaction of the market be, particularly supermarkets, to that situation in Scotland?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 16 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
You have also pointed to the fact that this model of legislating does not have any dispute resolution mechanism within it. Can you say a bit more about the consequences of that?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
I suppose that my question is about the reason for the UK Government’s timing, then.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
Just so that you are speaking on behalf of all of us, will you summarise what your concerns are about the withdrawn SI and why you think they are concerns that the committee as a whole shares?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
It is fair to draw attention to what is a less than ideal circumstance, but I point out that we have received a letter this morning from the Scottish Government that gives reasons for its view that a Scottish SI is necessary, given the changes that the UK Government has made to the UK SI at rapid pace over the past few days. I am looking for some assurance that the tone of the letter that is written will reflect that.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
That is fine. If that is the tone, I am happy with that. However, I have made the point that we should acknowledge that we have had correspondence, albeit just this morning, from the Scottish Government, setting out some of the reasons for the situation.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 15 December 2021
Alasdair Allan
I am just proposing that we ask the question. I am not sure what the problem is with asking the question.