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 5744 contributions
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
You have broadly responded to most of my questions. The minister MĂ iri McAllan stated that
“chasing and killing a mammal with a dog, for sport or otherwise, has no place in modern Scotland”,
and that view is shared by 77 per cent of the Scottish public, who, in response to a 2019 poll, said that the existing legislation to protect animals from hunting needs to be strengthened. It is important to remember that protecting animal welfare is a key concern for people, and it is a key driver of the bill. Why is the title of the bill the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill when the title of the previous act—the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002—better reflects the animal welfare motivation?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
That is what I was wondering about.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
When you had your discussions with NatureScot about granting licences for a maximum of 14 days and its capacity for doing that, did you discuss accountability and transparency?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 1 June 2022
Ariane Burgess
I would like a bit of clarity on licensing for environmental benefit, which you may have touched on a bit. Section 8 states that a licence in connection with section 7
“must not be granted unless the relevant authority is satisfied ... that killing, capturing or observing the wild mammal will contribute towards a significant or long-term environmental benefit”.
In order to balance the need to protect certain species and enhance biodiversity with the need to protect the welfare of all sentient animals and manage wildlife ethically, will guidance be published on how to determine what meets the criteria for
“significant or long-term environmental benefit”?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
That is helpful. It is great to hear about the work that you have been doing with the Scottish Community Alliance to analyse the food growing strategies.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
At this point, I am going to set out what we will do for the next half an hour or so. We have about seven or eight questions left, and we will try to cover three themes. You may have already covered some of them, because you are doing such brilliant work here. What you are sharing with us is great.
The next theme is the implementation of the 2015 act and the assumptions about the size of allotments. Then we will bring in a bit more of the local food strategies, which Lou Evans started to touch on. We then want to talk about, and get a greater understanding from you about, volunteering and planning, which we have also touched on.
We still have quite a lot to cover, but we have touched on a lot of those things already. I will bring in Marie McNair with a couple of questions about the size of the plots.
11:00Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
That is very true. This has been a rich conversation. Paul McLennan and the rest of us have gained a lot from it.
Lou Evans referred to “our sector”. I think that you said what that is, but I would love it if you could encapsulate what you are imagining when you say “our sector”.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
The next item is to take evidence on the impact of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 on allotments and community food growing. This is the first of three evidence sessions that the committee is holding as part of its inquiry. We will be discussing the topic today with a panel of witnesses representing allotment and food growing organisations.
I welcome Lou Evans from the Community Growing Forum Scotland; Jenny Reeves, who is the chair of the Glasgow Allotments Forum; Stuart McKenzie, who is the president of the Federation of Edinburgh and District Allotments and Gardens Associations; and Richard Crawford, who is the vice-president of the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society, who is joining us online.
It would be helpful if members could direct their questions to a specific witness where possible, although I will be happy to bring in others who wish to contribute. If other witnesses wish to comment, please indicate your desire to do so to me or to the clerk and I will bring you in at an appropriate point. Richard, I would be grateful if you could indicate when you wish to come in by typing R in the chat function in BlueJeans. I will begin by asking a few questions and then open up the session to questions from other members.
This is about the big picture of allotments. I am keen to hear your views on the broader, positive impacts of allotments, particularly the social, environmental and food security benefits that allotments bring. Do you have any sense of how those benefits are being measured. Do you think that allotments have an impact in other areas of public policy in Scotland? There is quite a bit there. I will start with Stuart McKenzie and then go to everybody else.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
Indeed. Thank you very much for your response to that. Yesterday, we visited Stuart McKenzie’s allotment and I told him that I came across that allotment site in Inverleith park when I was a child, and I remember it being a magical discovery experience. You are right that allotments are tucked away. We visited others yesterday as well. Inverleith allotments seem to be more visible now and there are 180 people growing food there. We visited others that are visible and we saw a community plot that involves new Scots, which you spoke of. It was incredible to see that coming to life.
I will bring in Richard Crawford to answer the same question. In general, what are the social, environmental and food security benefits of allotments and community growing and do you have a sense, from the work that you have been doing, of whether the benefits are being measured or assessed in any way?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 31 May 2022
Ariane Burgess
Thank you for that clear response and those useful figures.