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 ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 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 2114 contributions
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
Rhoda Grant asked me about the benefits that communities get, and I talked about the sea bed lease fees that Crown Estate Scotland receives and how those are distributed to local authorities for community benefit.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
Yes. We have already touched on the Scottish Science Advisory Council report and the recommendations that it provided us, which we are considering. We asked for that review specifically because of the science recommendations in Griggs’s review.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
Yes—absolutely. We are looking to expand the counter network so that we can get to grips with some of that data. The implementation plan is important in highlighting where that further work needs to be done on research, innovation and data collection.
We know that we cannot do that in isolation. It has not been possible for us to get all the information that we need on our own. We are working with the fisheries boards and trusts, as well. They have a vital role to play in that, and they are among the key stakeholders that make up part of the delivery group. We want to make sure that we are engaging with people, because we all have a role in helping to deliver on the recommendations.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
You are absolutely right. The salmon is an iconic species for Scotland, and we need to do absolutely everything that we can to prevent a further decline in its numbers. We are not holding anything up in trying to address the challenges that we face. The stage that we are at now is based on the work that we have done in trying to identify what the key pressures on wild salmon are. That is why we published the wild salmon strategy and then published the implementation plan.
It is all very well to have a strategy, but we need to deliver on what we set out in it. That is where the 60 recommendations are key, and that is why having a delivery group, which will ensure that we deliver against those recommendations, will play a really critical part, as well. The group has already had its first meeting and, as I have said, we will report annually on where we are at with each of the recommendations.
You talked about innovation. That is really important. That is why we support innovation and fund it. Through the marine fund Scotland, we have provided about £7 million-worth of funding for innovation and technology. We also work with the likes of the Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Centre, which gets funding through the Scottish Funding Council and takes forward a number of important projects.
We are therefore not holding anything up. We want to address the challenges that we know salmon farming faces, but some of them are more difficult to deal with. There is the impact of climate change, and there are all the other challenges that it faces. That is why it is important that we try to take action on all those fronts and do what we can to meet the challenges that we know exist.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
Yes, absolutely. We have seen that through the voluntary reporting of data. Obviously, we have some regulatory and mandatory requirements of the industry, but, using mortalities as an example, the industry has voluntarily published that information by the percentage and cause of mortalities. Industry is also looking at—I am sure that officials will correct me if I am wrong—its community engagement, the code of practice on that and how it can better do that. Although I have outlined some of the actions that we have taken on the overall holistic picture and the consideration of the various issues in the round, and I have talked about the role of SEPA and regulation in that, I think that industry is making those changes on the basis of the various voluntary information that it has provided. We collect all that information, and the Scotland’s Aquaculture website is an example of where we have tried to pull all of that information together.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
On the use of antibiotics, Jill Barber touched on the on-going work in the consultation on the use of emamectin benzoate. Anything that is used has to be within the environmental limits and standards that are in place. Again, that is where the work of the farmed fish health framework has been really important. That group is chaired by the chief vet, and treatment is a theme of the work. If the committee would like more detail on the work that the group is undertaking on antibiotics, I will be happy to provide that.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Mairi Gougeon
I also point out that, in its negotiations with New Zealand, the EU is looking at similar changes with greater flexibility with regard to, for example, the percentage of the grape variety that should be on the label.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Mairi Gougeon
There is what is set out in the Government’s legislative programme, obviously. You will have seen the debate on the legislative consent motion that took place in the Parliament yesterday, and this instrument is coming forward, but I will ask Kevin Matheson to say whether we expect any more, particularly in relation to food and drink.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Mairi Gougeon
It also provides more clarity and transparency on the percentage of alcohol, which the lower-alcohol-volume producers have also welcomed. Other varieties can be used to up the consistency of the wine product, but producers on both sides have welcomed that.