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 成人快手 and committees will automatically update to show only the 成人快手 and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of 成人快手 and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of 成人快手 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 2160 contributions
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COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
Thank you very much. That was pretty much the answer that we gave to my constituents. I am glad that you have confirmed the position.
The final issue that I want to ask about is seasonal agricultural workers. What are the current restrictions on seasonal agricultural workers who come into the country? Are those restrictions adequate?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
I thank the panellists very much for coming to the meeting.
For the understanding of people who are watching this, we are talking about international travel鈥攖hat is what the session is based on鈥攁nd a lot of the regulations that we are speaking about are retrospective. The convener and I, as new members, were not here when many of the regulations were put in place, so my questions are retrospective, too. One question in particular is aimed more at Jason Leitch than it is at the cabinet secretary.
Where are we in relation to seafarers and oil workers? I ask about them separately, because there seem to be different regulations, depending on when they come back. I have constituents who are oil workers who are asking particularly about going to the North Sea. They go to the Norwegian sector鈥攖o an environment that is among the safest in the world鈥攁nd they are tested before they go out, when they arrive and before they come back. However, they were still required to self-isolate for 10 days. Is that still the case? If it is, why?
What is the position with seafarers? I understand that, given that they come back from multiple parts of the world, the situation for them might be slightly more tricky, but will you give us an update on their position?
I will have another couple of questions after those questions have been answered.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee
Ministerial Statement and Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 9 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
Okay. Thank you.
My second question is about St Johnstone Football Club, which travelled to Turkey, played a game and came home. I have constituents who have properties in Turkey and want to go over to them to deal with issues. They have said that elite sportspeople can travel, but they cannot. Is there a way for people to travel safely to Turkey, which is on the red list? Why was it okay for St Johnstone to go there? I am not saying that St Johnstone should not have gone there, but the complaint from constituents is that there is hypocrisy. Can you give us details about why that was the case?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
I would like us to come back to the sustainably Scottish brand at some point, because we have brands that sit within the Scotch brand. Where will they fit in? Are we going to absorb them into the sustainably Scottish brand? We need to drill into that, and I would appreciate our being able to come back to that in the future.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
It is clear from that that we need to keep a very close eye on where divergences are going to be and where we could be brought into conflict with the UK Government as the policies develop. Is it fair to say that?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
I presume that you will bring us up to date if there is any progress on any of those issues.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
I am sorry to Ariane Burgess for interrupting her questioning, but I am keen to bore down into this matter a wee bit. Having been a hard-nosed farmer, I know that finances are usually the driver for making anyone do anything as far as having a sustainable business is concerned. Have you allocated an amount of money to persuade people to go organic, and have you done a cost benefit analysis of how much you are going to have to put in to do that?
Moreover, have you looked at the issue of organic farming versus regenerative agriculture? I do not want to set one against the other, but I have to tell Ariane that they are definitely not the same thing. Has the Government looked at regenerative as opposed to organic farming, or does it, like Ariane, consider them to be the same? How serious are you about pushing that area of farming in Scotland?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
You gave a broad outline of what the new agriculture bill that will be introduced is about. What do you hope to achieve and what is its purpose, specifically in relation to food production? In addition, what will the conditionality on support look like in relation to the balance between environmental benefits and food production? What do you hope to achieve with the new agricultural subsidy system?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
You have said that there will be a 50:50 balance regarding environmental benefits and food production. My understanding is that that approach differs radically from that in the UK Agriculture Act 2020. If we have a different agricultural policy in Scotland, does that put us on a collision course with the UK Government and the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 8 September 2021
Jim Fairlie
I am aware that I am taking up a lot of time, but I have two more brief questions for the cabinet secretary.
First, the NFU has written to Kevin Foster to ask for a 12-month Covid recovery visa. Do you know whether it has received a response? Have you had any communication with the UK Government in order to get that visa put in place?
I have only just learned about the second thing that I want to ask you about. There is something in the new programme for government about the living wage for agricultural workers. The Agricultural Wages (Scotland) Order (No 68) 2021 takes agricultural wages well above the minimum wage. I do not know where the balance is. Will the order be scrapped, or is there something else that we do not know about at this stage?
