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 ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ 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 6954 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Finlay Carson
We move to consideration of an affirmative Scottish statutory instrument. I welcome Jim Fairlie, the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity. I also welcome his officials, John Speirs, who is the senior policy adviser, science and advice for the Scottish agriculture policy and pesticide survey unit, and David Corrigall, who is a solicitor.
I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Finlay Carson
I remind Ms Hamilton and the minister of the necessity of treating one another with respect. I ask for one person to speak at a time.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Finlay Carson
Thank you.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Finlay Carson
That is incredibly important, but I can tell you that there does not need to be a decision today. There is flexibility—there will be no cliff edge if we do not make a decision today.
I beg your pardon, Emma. Would you like to come back in?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Finlay Carson
Minister, in your previous response, you said that that could change, depending on the UK budget.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Finlay Carson
It is the wording from the DPLR Committee’s report.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Finlay Carson
But that is not unusual. The first SSI that was dealt with today looks to extend the time, but not to some time far in the future. It covers a realistic time in which some issues can be resolved. We see that regularly. Minister, you will be well aware of the number of times that we have dealt with SSIs relating to extending border control legislation. Those covered not years but a matter of months, which is a reasonable time for these things to be resolved. That is one of my concerns.
I will bring Emma Harper back in.
12:45Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Finlay Carson
The result of the division is: For 7, Against 2, Abstentions 0.
Amendment 12 agreed to.
Amendments 13 and 14 moved—[Jim Fairlie]—and agreed to.
Amendment 61 moved—[Finlay Carson].
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Finlay Carson
The result of the division is: For 2, Against 7, Abstentions 0.
Amendment 71 disagreed to.
Section 4, as amended, agreed to.
Section 5—Revision of code
Amendment 47 moved—[Jim Fairlie].
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]
Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 18 September 2024
Finlay Carson
Amendment 75, in my name, is grouped with amendments 76 and 5.
Amendment 75 seeks to make it a statutory requirement to introduce a public awareness campaign specifically to ensure that children are made aware of the code at school.
In its stage 1 report, the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee noted that section 7 says:
“The Scottish Ministers must take reasonable steps to ensure public awareness and understanding of the code of practice”,
and then referred to the policy memorandum, which states that
“For the behavioural shift envisaged to take place, effective public awareness raising will be vital in ensuring those acquiring a dog become aware of and understand the contents of the code and the associated certificate.”
The report then made the point that
“All witnesses supported section 7 and strongly agreed that a public awareness campaign would be essential in order for the bill’s objectives to be achieved.”
The stage 1 report also referenced the Kennel Club’s puppywise survey. According to that organisation, the
“survey found that a fifth of people still spend less than two hours researching whether to get a puppy ... and nearly a third admit that they would not know how to spot a rogue breeder”,
and it concluded that
“For us, the educational piece is really important because, ultimately, we need members of the public to demand better standards of breeders.”
Several animal welfare organisations also talked about the challenges of awareness campaigns having a meaningful impact on public behaviour. The Dogs Trust referred to the “very low” public awareness of the existing code of practice for cats and dogs, while the SSPCA talked about
“people following their hearts, not their heads”
and how
“They know that standing in a car park with a puppy in the boot of a car is the wrong thing to do, but they think, ‘I want to go and rescue that pup, because who else is going to do it?’”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs and Islands Committee, 20 September 2023; c 7, 17.]
That is why the amendment seeks to make a public awareness campaign a statutory requirement.
We believe that children should be made aware of this issue in schools, too. According to new pet population data released by UK Pet Food, in 2024, 56 per cent of new pet owners have children at home. As for more long-term ownership, the National Library of Medicine found that almost 20 per cent of all dog owners had a child at home. One might summarise all that by saying that a sizeable proportion of dog owners have children, and it is therefore clear that targeting a public awareness campaign at schools would reach a sizeable pet owner demographic. As a result, a public awareness campaign with the code of practice explained in simple terms would be effective.
Amendment 76 seeks to make it mandatory for the Scottish Government to consult relevant organisations on raising funds for public awareness. It is incredibly important that the Government works with and consults organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Dogs Trust, the Kennel Club, the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and the SSPCA, to ensure that any public awareness campaign is maximised. Discussions should also take place on the potential funding for public awareness campaigns.
I move amendment 75.
