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 ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ 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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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Yes, exactly. Therefore, we are talking about a hunting context and what happens if dogs come into an area where there are nesting birds. We heard from farmers earlier—and we have heard in other situations—that hunting actually helps the nesting birds. I am trying to understand whether there is a different experience of that.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
My question is for Barrie Wade, who is in the spotlight this morning.
The written evidence from the National Working Terrier Federation states:
“It is commonplace on a shoot day to use more than 2 dogs while flushing game from cover ... We do not believe that the intention of the Bill is to restrict, control or interfere with normal shooting practices”.
I want to get clarity on that point, because the bill does restrict the number of dogs to two for game shooting and to one for flushing foxes and mink from below ground. If you do not think that the bill restricts those practices, that is a really important point that we need to fully understand.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Okay.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
I had a question for Duncan Orr-Ewing, but you have responded to most of it in answer to the convener’s questions, so I will ask a follow-up question.
The bill proposes a licensing scheme for using more than two dogs for wildlife control purposes, and individual landowners, farmers and organisations will be able to apply for those licences. However, I am aware that, for some predators, including species such as mink, control measures are efficacious in the long term only if they are done at a landscape scale. How could the approach to species control be improved? Could we take an alternative approach to simply allowing greater numbers of dogs to be used by licence holders in their local area?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
The bill includes an exception for environmental benefit, which would allow, with a licence, the use of two or more dogs for purposes such as eradication of invasive non-native species. However, can you tell me about the environmental harm that can be caused by bringing dogs into an area where, for example, there are ground-nesting birds? That question is for Duncan Orr-Ewing.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
I hear what you say about the way in which the dog is worked, but how often does a dog attack a fox underground?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
I have been made aware of evidence that terriers that do terrier work have scars on their faces. Surely if you put a dog that is in hunt mode underground and it comes up against a fox, they must come into contact. What is the difference between putting two dogs against each other above ground, which is illegal, and putting a terrier underground against a fox in a highly stressful situation?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
How do you prevent the dog from attacking the fox underground?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
Ross Macleod, do you want to come in on that?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 8 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
I have a follow-up question for Duncan Orr-Ewing. Should we give more thought to the environmental benefit that wild mammals, such as foxes and badgers, contribute to an area, such as how their digging in the soil contributes to nutrient recycling and moisture retention, helping to prevent flooding and drought and creating habitats for other animals?
