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 1877 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Bob Doris
My understanding is that if the proposed land and communities commissioner became aware of or suspected potential breaches—however they became aware of them—they would not under the bill have the power to kick-start their own investigation. Is that a weakness in relation to the system?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Bob Doris
That was very helpful, and what you have said will please the convener, as it links with my next question. That is good for keeping us timeous.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Bob Doris
Of course, convener. I have a line of questioning that I would like to explore. I am sure that you will let me do so, following that session of supplementary questions.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Bob Doris
Okay. We are talking about a threshold of 3,000 hectares, but I am conscious that we are limiting the proposals to a single composite and contiguous holding. We are not looking at aggregated corporate holdings. Linda Gillespie, I give you an opportunity to comment on the idea of ensuring that we incorporate aggregated holdings as well as single holdings. Do you have any views on that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Bob Doris
That is helpful. I saw Josh Doble nodding as you made that comment. Do you want to add anything, Dr Doble?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Bob Doris
I am sure that we will return to that. You mentioned proportionality. We will perhaps return to ensuring that the framework for alleged breaches in enforcement compliance is proportionate. There is a limited framework in that regard. In the bill, the maximum fine for non-compliance is £5,000, and it refers to, but is not explicit about, the potential cross-compliance issues. Are you content that £5,000 is enough? I imagine that it will cost a lot more than £5,000 to produce a land management plan in the first place. Have we got that framework right? Jon Hollingdale, will you comment on that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Bob Doris
I apologise, convener. I was just running through the line of questioning that we had agreed.
Clearly, the list of those who can report breaches is, as Jon Hollingdale has said, relatively narrow. In that case, can we look in the round at whether the current compliance framework is adequate? Perhaps either Linda Gillespie or Josh Doble will comment on that and, indeed, on whether they agree with Jon Hollingdale’s comment that the list of those who can report non-compliance is too restrictive and narrow.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Bob Doris
I want to return to the scale of land management plans and the threshold that is involved. Mr Ruskell’s exchange on that was helpful in pointing out that it is not always a matter of scale but about public interest and other overlapping policy considerations.
The threshold is currently set at 3,000 hectares, but, for many people, that will be just a number. For example, Glasgow’s botanic gardens and their lands are in my constituency, and those would fit 150 times into 3,000 hectares, which perhaps brings home the fact that the threshold is way too high and should be reconsidered. Evidence to the committee has suggested that the threshold could be set at 500 or 1,000 hectares. However, we must also consider whether additional burdens might be placed on what could be small businesses if we were to place such obligations on them. I get the fact that responsibilities come with owning significant holdings such as 500 or 1,000 hectares. How do we get the balance right between potentially imposing such burdens on small businesses and their taking on the responsibilities that we would like to see happen? Perhaps Jon Hollingdale would come in first on that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Bob Doris
That is helpful. Before I come to Dr Doble, I might layer my second question on top of that, because the convener is conscious of time constraints.
I think that Dr Doble said that 2,025 landowners would come into the gamut if the threshold were to be 500 hectares as opposed to 420 landowners if the threshold is 3,000 hectares. That would be an additional 1,545 landowners. However, he also anticipated that many of those would have land management plans of a sort anyway. Indeed, he would expect them to do so as responsible landowners. Dr Doble, will you answer the same question that I put to Jon Hollingdale? Also, if, for instance, the owner of 1,000 hectares of land did not have a land management plan, would that be a risk factor? Would that concern you in the first place?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Bob Doris
I am pretty sure that we will return to that later in the evidence session. Linda Gillespie, do you have any reflections on the two questions that I have asked?
