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 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.
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Displaying 5744 contributions
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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Accounts Commission Local Government and Financial Overview Reports
Meeting date: 21 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Carol Calder, I noticed that you wanted to come in a few minutes ago. Do you want to pick up on a theme that we were talking about earlier?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Accounts Commission Local Government and Financial Overview Reports
Meeting date: 21 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
I have another quick question about ring fencing and drip-feed funding. I am keen to hear your views on lump-sum funding versus drip-feed funding. The issue is coming up again. I am aware that some smaller local authorities in particular feel the burden on officers’ time of continuous funding allocations throughout the year from the Scottish Government, and feel the burden in areas that involve significant statutory duties and ring fencing, such as education. What impact could larger start-of-year lump-sum funding have on local authorities’ ability to plan effectively?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thank you.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
How does the proposed SI relate to the common framework on plant health? For example, are the decision-making fora and processes established by the common framework being used for import checks on plant products, and will they be used for the annual review of the frequency of checks?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
My question is directed, first, at Robbie Marsland and then, if there is time, at Kirsty Jenkins.
The submission from the League Against Cruel Sports states your organisation’s belief that
“the proposed licensing scheme will simply create a new loophole which will still allow for traditional”
fox
“hunting to take place.”
Can you please explain that? Why would being allowed to use more than two dogs allow traditional fox hunts to continue whereas a hard limit of two dogs maximum would effectively end the practice?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Last week, I had a conversation with a shepherd who works in the Borders. He said that he loses lambs, so I asked him what he did when he starts to lose them. He said that he monitors the fields where it is happening, and he noted that the fox tends to take one lamb from a pair of twins. He described the method that he uses if predation is frequent. He said that mounted hunts are not an effective form of fox control. I asked what he did instead, and he said that they bring in a marksman who does lamping and sits out on the land overnight. That tackles the situation.
It was illuminating to hear what you said at the beginning of the evidence session about the shift from mounted hunts being a sport to their being a form of pest control. The shepherd told me that he knows people who participate in mounted hunts on quad bikes and, from talking to them as well as people who do mounted hunts on horseback, he said that it is a day out for the lads; it is not really about pest control.
Why are we going down the road of saying that people can use dogs when those who work in the sector say that that is not an effective form of control? They say that using a marksman and sitting out is an effective and humane form of control. What are your thoughts on that?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
I have a question that follows on from Jim Fairlie’s question. I find myself quite confused every time that he brings up the issue of flushing to guns and says that the issue is not the number of dogs but the number of guns. However, I do not think that there is a legal limit on the number of guns—at this point, you can have as many guns as you want. That is not—
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
At the moment, is it legal to have more than two guns? Could you have 10 guns?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Mike Flynn started to talk about this issue a little. Last week, we spoke to Barrie Wade from the National Working Terrier Federation, and he stated:
“The point of a terrier being below ground is not to fight with the fox, but to bark at him and discourage him from staying below ground.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee, 8 June 2022; c 16.]
He also explained to my colleague Mercedes Villalba that, in certain circumstances, it would be a welfare issue to send only one dog under ground, because that would not motivate the fox to come up and the dog might stay there too long.
However, that concern for animal welfare does not sit well with other descriptions of terrier work that I have heard. Last week, I was talking to a shepherd, who told me that, when he was returning from work, he encountered a hunt and saw a terrier with half its face torn off after it had been sent down to find the fox. I am also aware of the case in Angus last month in which a gamekeeper was taken to court after his dogs were found to be seriously disfigured from fighting foxes and badgers, although he claimed that the dogs had been injured while carrying out legitimate ratting and foxing duties.
Apart from the impact on the dog, I would like to hear more about the animal welfare implications for foxes and mink. Can the panel give us information on the welfare impacts of terrier work and your views on exception 5? Perhaps Mike Flynn would like to pick that up, because he had started to comment.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 15 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
I will direct my question to Robbie Marsland, after which others may come in. I ask for clarification. The written evidence that was received by the committee includes many statements that the bill will limit the efficacy of so-called “pest control”, but I thought that the main substance of the bill—the offences in sections 1 and 2—relates to hunting with dogs in circumstances that are already illegal. Will you clarify what you believe is the intention of the bill and why it is necessary?
