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 łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of łÉČËżěĘÖ 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 2161 contributions
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
How do the common frameworks protect your ability to put in place a policy that ensures that the policies that we want to implement in Scotland to support agriculture are as the Scottish Government intends? How do the common frameworks protect that?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
Ultimately, then, the 2022 act could overrule the common frameworks that you are working with. Are you telling us that, if you were to put forward a negotiating position through the common frameworks, saying, “This is the problem that we want to address,” but the UK Government had a completely different and diverging policy, that piece of legislation could overrule the work of the common frameworks?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
I am going to refer back to the question that the convener asked about challenges with the frameworks, given that they appear to be agreed between Governments, although stakeholder evidence provides the view that provisions of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 render them kind of useless.
I note that the Law Society of Scotland said:
“We note that there are no domestic legal constraints on the powers of the UK Parliament or UK Government concerning common frameworks.”
It added, conversely:
“we note that the devolved governments will be bound to such common frameworks either because they have agreed to them or because they are bound by law.”
Does that give you concern about how the common frameworks will work for the Scottish Government?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
My understanding is that, despite all the rhetoric around common frameworks and how we will work together, it is ultimately the UK minister who will make the overruling decision on whether a common framework is within exclusions that the Scottish Government might wish to apply. Is that correct, or is it your understanding?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
Convener, the witnesses have just raised a point that is really important to farming in Scotland. I have a question that follows on from the one that Rachael Hamilton asked.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
Do you have a concern that the potential for you to implement a similar scheme will be impacted?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
I know—I am just highlighting that fact.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
Okay, George—bamboozle us with the science of how that is going to work.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
On the issue of divergence between Scotland and other areas of the UK, am I correct in thinking that, right now, there is an avian flu policy for the housing of birds in England but not in Scotland? There are about 80 cases in England and only four in Scotland. During the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in the 2000s, we, in Scotland, took the decision to close immediately when we found a case, whereas it took a week to make such a decision south of the border, as a result of which the spread down south was much greater. Surely, we would want to retain our ability to make our own decisions on animal health and welfare in Scotland.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
I just want to come back in quickly, before George bamboozles me with the science of it.
I do not know whether the UK Government’s policy has changed, what with the turbulence over the past couple of weeks and the fact that I have not been home yet, but my understanding of the UK Government’s position is that, by 2027, all direct support will be taken away and the process down south will be based entirely around environmental controls and access to land. On the other hand, the Scottish Government’s preferred option is still to retain 50 per cent of direct payments—that is the quoted figure, and you can clarify for me whether it is correct—to continue to allow support for food production. Is that the kind of area that might cause concern? Will common frameworks allow you to protect that position?