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 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.
Displaying 930 contributions
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Kate Forbes
Good morning. As I understand it, one reason for the SSI is to make non-lead alternatives more accessible so that more carcases can enter the food chain, which is a positive thing. In the past few years, we have seen examples of huge levels of waste, particularly when non-shooting, non-commercial estates have culled tens, if not hundreds, of deer and left them to rot. What engagement has the Scottish Government had with estates that might be considering doing that? What encouragement is being given to ensure that that great meat source is relieving hunger in this country rather than being wasted?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Kate Forbes
I know that I already alluded to this, but I will put it on the record. What would reassure the committee to an extent is a willingness on the part of the Government to return at some point鈥攕ay, in a year鈥攖o review the evidence over the course of the year, where there has been evidence, for example, of relatively newly born male deer being shot. Could we get a commitment that the minister will return in a year, when we can consider the evidence of how the measure has been implemented?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Kate Forbes
That is very helpful. You might be familiar with the Country Food Trust, which does a great job in taking venison that might otherwise go to waste and creating nutritious meals that it then donates to food banks.
One of the risks, however, is that, if there is a massive increase in culling, particularly out of season, that has a huge impact on the likelihood of that meat being eaten. The idea that we might be wasting meat sits so wrongly with me. Does the Scottish Government have a word of warning to give that, if we are to see culling increase, particularly out of season, that is not a licence to see far more carcases going to waste, especially if one of the benefits of this SSI is actually to see more carcases going into the food network?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Kate Forbes
No, we have not鈥攚e are very much still on the first SSI.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Kate Forbes
An example from recent years is mountain hares. In the debate about that, one argument that was made as to why land managers should still be allowed to shoot and cull mountain hares was that high growth in numbers would lead to hare starvation because the habitat could not sustain them. I think that we need to think more carefully about how we explain the fact that we have taken a very different direction on mountain hares, which have a detrimental impact on vegetation and on trees鈥擨 believe鈥攖hat is equal to that of deer. The gamekeepers who have questioned me have asked how we explain the two different approaches that the Government is taking to mountain hares, for example, and deer.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 13 September 2023
Kate Forbes
This may be a slight tangent. I know that the minister will be very familiar with the two large wildfires in my constituency over the summer, one at Daviot and one at Cannich. I went to visit the site of one of the fires and was repeatedly told, by environmental charities as well as by gamekeepers, that one primary reason for the wildfires spreading so quickly, particularly at Cannich, was the fuel load. There had been a build-up of vegetation and there was a lot of stuff to burn across vast areas where the only option might be the aerial application of something to control bracken.
In your deliberations about the importance of bracken control, did you consider the risk of the fast spread of wildfires? Might that be a consideration as you weigh up the pros and cons of using particular methods of bracken control?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Kate Forbes
I suppose that it raises awareness, which you earlier suggested is needed.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Kate Forbes
I do not believe that I have any relevant interests to declare.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Kate Forbes
Your report considered five areas鈥攇lue traps, food and drink, genetic technology, single-use plastics and the deposit return scheme鈥攁ll of which probably appeared more often in the press than some other issues.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Kate Forbes
Mr MacLennan, in your response to Neil Bibby, you mentioned the fact that most businesses do not think of trade barriers when they are trading freely. If we reflect on the past few years, we know that there has been a huge amount of upheaval, such as rising costs, Covid or the trade barriers associated with Brexit, which might have done more than at other times to push businesses into new markets. Those factors might have encouraged Scotland-based businesses that had been trading within the EU to trade more within the UK, or vice versa. I can think of one business in my constituency that used to trade primarily within the UK but that now trades in Europe, and I can think of another that has done the opposite.
You have taken a lot of qualitative evidence from businesses. Have you come across a lot of examples of businesses that might have traded more frequently in Europe having to adjust to operating within the UK and dealing with some of the challenges that that brings?