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 418 contributions
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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
Given some of the correspondence that the committee has received, I suggest that, rather than take that decision today, we defer a decision on what we do next until next week, when we have a chance to discuss the work programme.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
Now that we have had an opportunity to review the written evidence that we received last week—there was a significant amount—I, too, have some outstanding confusion after today’s session with the bill team. As long as we have a balance of groups coming in, I think that it would be beneficial to have a round-table session.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
I have two follow-up questions about the number of people and the number of dogs on a shoot. First, the convener said that, on a rough shoot, dogs are typically—or might be—managed by beaters or others who are not shooting. Is that a practice that you accept is part of a rough shoot?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
In circumstances in which dogs are managed by the shooters—as I understand it from Ms Fitzgerald’s response to Beatrice Wishart—shooting wild mammals that have been flushed by someone else’s dog or dogs would be an offence, and the shooter’s dog does not have to be their personal dog. At what point during the shoot does that need to be decided? This might come up in relation to enforcement. It strikes me that someone could very easily say, “That’s my dog for the purposes of this shoot,” and that that could be changed to suit them.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
That sounds slightly different to what Leia Fitzgerald was saying. I understand that it is related to the activity, so that shooting a wild mammal that has been flushed by no more than two dogs would not be an offence. I understand from what Amy Hogarth is saying that if a shooter had brought dogs but other dogs flushed the mammal to them, that would be an offence.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
I want to follow up on Jim Fairlie’s question. I understand that addressing animal welfare concerns is a motivator of the bill. How is it that multiple sets of one or two dogs flushing to guns leads to higher animal welfare outcomes than a single pack of more than two dogs flushing to guns does?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 16 November 2022
Mercedes Villalba
There might be five sets of one or two dogs flushing in close proximity to one another on a rough shoot. If a fox or a wild mammal is in that area, how will that lead to higher animal welfare than if there were the same number of dogs working as a pack?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Inshore Fisheries
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Mercedes Villalba
We have heard about the importance of ecosystems, which include people as well as nature, and we have heard about declining stocks and loss of vessels. Given the impact that climate change is having on inshore fisheries, I am interested in hearing from the panel—perhaps Charles Millar could kick us off—about any tangible things that we can do to support and promote low-impact fishing methods, to ensure that we have a just transition away from the high-impact methods.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Inshore Fisheries
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Mercedes Villalba
It is not brief, convener.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 26 October 2022
Mercedes Villalba
The reclassification of blueberry rust from the list of quarantine pests in the list of regulated non-quarantine pests suggests to me that controls on that pest have been ineffective as it has moved from being a pest that is largely absent from a territory to being one that is already present in the territory with measures in place to minimise its spread. I am interested in receiving any data on the rising prevalence of the pest and any analysis of what has led to its spread, and in hearing what steps the relevant ministers and Governments are taking to control and eradicate it.
