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 1148 contributions
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
Emma Harper
No, I do not mind.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
Emma Harper
I have a question. You talk about getting a good dog. What does “a good dog” mean? Does it mean a dog that is feisty? You do not want them to be fighting other dogs when they are at a track. How do you know that a dog is going to be a good dog?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
Emma Harper
I have a quick question. When a greyhound has a litter of puppies, how many puppies are normally in a litter and how many of those puppies become racing greyhounds that are good enough to race? I am thinking about whether there are too many that need to be rehomed after racing.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
Emma Harper
Good morning, George and Daniel. Thanks for being here today. I am interested in hearing where dogs are sourced from. You said that you often breed your own, but how do you source your other dogs? For example, I know that Ireland is considered one of the best performance places for greyhounds. I know, too, that the turnaround period for racing is about four years. By that I mean that dogs will only race for that long, so there has to be a turnaround period to keep up with the demand for racing. I am interested in hearing where you source your dogs from.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
Emma Harper
We have had debates in the chamber about greyhound racing, and one of the accusations made is about the use of cocaine, amphetamines and steroids, which are banned substances for greyhounds. What are your thoughts on the publication of that kind of information?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
Emma Harper
In respect of whether banned substances are given in greyhound racing.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 20 March 2024
Emma Harper
George, do you have to travel to Ireland to auctions, or is it done online?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Emma Harper
It has come up previously that there have been protests for eight years now at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, and that that specific issue was one of the reasons why 150m was not considered to be adequate and 200m was agreed. At other hospitals, the zone might not need to be 200m, but will depend on the hospital’s periphery.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Emma Harper
I am thinking about the ability to extend or reduce a zone or to add a new site. I used the example of a new hospital—a replacement service in another area. One concern was about the Scottish ministers making that decision to extend or reduce the area without going through further parliamentary scrutiny. Sandesh Gulhane spoke about further scrutiny through statutory instruments or making sure that wider consultation was under way. Might we need to consider that as we move forward—or would it potentially incur delays in establishing new, enhanced or reduced zones?
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Emma Harper
Good morning to my colleague on the other side of the table. You have clarified the issue of 200m zones being established in Scotland, when 150m was part of the original consultation. From my asking the minister about it, I think that the 200m decision was related to the Queen Elizabeth university hospital. Is that correct?