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 成人快手 and committees will automatically update to show only the 成人快手 and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of 成人快手 and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of 成人快手 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 2114 contributions
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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Mairi Gougeon
They are being sold only as defrosted. More birds could potentially be frozen鈥攖hat could be an option鈥攂ut we have taken the decision and gone ahead with it because retailers cannot stock more frozen products. They are already selling birds as defrosted, if that makes sense.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Mairi Gougeon
On enforcement, we can see what has happened across the rest of GB. Local authorities have been asked not to enforce the regulations as they are, whereas, in Scotland, we have changed the legislation. We would simply be enforcing in the normal way.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Mairi Gougeon
We are not looking to do that at the moment. We intend the approach to be for only the stated period of time, given the nature of the outbreaks that we have seen.
To put things in context, at this time last year, we had not seen any cases. The circumstances are therefore very particular. We will, of course, potentially consider the matter again in the future, but, given the urgency of the situation and to prevent market disturbance, we have set out the approach for that period of time.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Mairi Gougeon
Absolutely. Obviously, the regulations will be in place for only a short period of time. Ultimately, we have to make decisions that are in the best interests of the industry and producers in Scotland. That is why we have introduced the regulations. The approach is in line with what is happening across Great Britain at the moment.
As far as I am aware, you are right: the EU is not introducing similar regulations. However, we know that AI impacts not only Scotland and the United Kingdom; it impacts other countries, too. I believe that there were trade reasons why defrosted meat was not permitted to be sold in that way. I do not know whether the officials have any other information on why we have set that out in regulations.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Mairi Gougeon
What do you mean? Do you mean potentially extending that or bringing it forward? Obviously, we would want to see what impact there has been. We will monitor that after 31 December to see how the approach has worked and whether it has had that impact.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Mairi Gougeon
As far as I am aware, this is the first time that we have introduced the regulations. My officials are nodding. I believe that this is the first time that we have done that. Given the nature of AI and what we have seen this year, the situation is unprecedented; we have never seen an outbreak like it. That is why we have had to introduce the regulations. There are unique circumstances.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 14 December 2022
Mairi Gougeon
They would not be able to be sold past that point. That is what we set out in the regulations. They can be sold only until 31 December.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Common Frameworks
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Mairi Gougeon
That is why we have the common frameworks processes鈥攖hey allow us to discuss matters at an early stage. As part of the common frameworks, we share information early and try to resolve any potential issues as early as possible, so that they do not need to be escalated. If it looks as though there might be policy divergence, the common frameworks ensure that we discuss at an early stage what the impact might be and how it might be managed.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Common Frameworks
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Mairi Gougeon
At an early stage, we would discuss our proposals and how we would intend to bring them forward. I am sure that George Burgess can talk you through the detail of the process, but I come back to my previous concerns. Although the common frameworks process is a positive and collaborative way of working, there are, at the same time, pieces of legislation coming in at the side that seek to undermine that way of working and that could constrain our policy choices.
It is important that we work on the guidance, so that we can see the practical implications of the 2022 act, because we have been concerned throughout that it could constrain the Scottish Government鈥檚 policy choices. The direction that we might like to take could be completely hampered by the legislation and some of its principles, given the very different landscape that we have in Scotland. Some of the voluntary and coupled support schemes that we have, for example, do not exist in other parts of the UK. We have them in Scotland for the very specific reason that we want to continue to support people who are farming in the most difficult terrain and the most remote and rural parts of the country. We have been concerned that the 2022 act could hamper our ability to provide that support or that it could lead to disputes further down the line. Again, though, we will continue to work through the process. George Burgess will talk you through how that works practically.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Common Frameworks
Meeting date: 2 November 2022
Mairi Gougeon
The common frameworks process itself allows us to address or work through potential issues when they emerge. Again, common frameworks in themselves will not necessarily protect our position if another piece of legislation comes in at the side and undermines it completely.
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