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 MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs 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 1359 contributions
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Karen Adam
I, too, thought that last week’s round table was extremely helpful, and I was satisfied by the comments about how well the hunts are run, how seriously they take the safety of everyone who is involved and, in particular, how they have trained the dogs exceptionally well. It really comes down to what you said in your opening statement about the real concern being the risk of vexatious complaints that might be made that would disrupt hunts if there needed to be investigations. I asked DS Telford if he thought that it would be helpful to warn the police that a rough shoot was going to take place, and he said that it would. What are your thoughts on that?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Karen Adam
Predatory men do exist. They do not need to dress as a woman or to sign a statutory declaration for a gender recognition certificate in order to attack women. Does Pam Gosal think that it is important that we do not conflate trans people with predatory men?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Karen Adam
Presiding Officer, I am concerned that we are conflating the gender recognition bill with men’s responsibility for gender-based violence. We should not be standing here, passing the blame on to rights for other people. It lies solely at the feet of men—predatory men.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Karen Adam
Will Pam Gosal take an intervention?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Karen Adam
Will the member take an intervention?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Karen Adam
I have a follow-up question. If the police were forewarned of rough shoots taking place in the area, would that be helpful?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Karen Adam
That would not be a legal requirement. It would be something that—
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Karen Adam
I am the MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Karen Adam
I have learned a lot today, so I thank everybody for all their points, comments and questions. The discussion has been really helpful.
I keep going back to animal welfare and the purpose of the bill, which is to stop mammals being chased down, ripped apart and killed. What I am hearing about rough shooting is that those who do it already abide by high animal welfare standards, and they do not want animals to be ripped apart or punctured—anything that would ruin their enjoyment of eating the mammal. Rough shooting is not within the scope of the bill, but we understand that there could be unintended consequences, which we are looking into. I am hearing that there will not be a limit of two dogs for rough shoots, but there are concerns about perceptions, vexatious complaints and so on.
To be honest, I have a lot of confidence in the police, and I think that we are not giving them enough kudos for what they do or for their understanding. It is not just common sense but, if I was to turn up at a rough shoot, I would know if there was a pack of hounds chasing down animals to rip them apart, and I would know the difference between that and dogs retrieving whole animals or birds. I think that the police have a great relationship with people in the countryside, particularly gun owners—I know that local police near me know people who own guns and who shoot in the area.
I am kind of getting to the point of my question. In relation to vexatious comments and things like that, if there is no breaking of the law, there is nothing to be concerned about in that regard. It is the animal welfare issues that we are pinning down here. My question is for DS Telford and is about relationships between the police and people in the countryside. Am I correct in thinking that the police are trained to spot animal welfare issues and to know the difference between rough shooting and a hunt?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Meeting date: 23 November 2022
Karen Adam
That would be a tell-tale sign.