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 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.
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Displaying 788 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
My apologies.
Are there any gaps in data collection? Is data collection consistent across Scotland, or are there specific areas where you need additional information? If so, how can that be achieved?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
Thank you. That was really helpful. I have to say, though, that farmers are being asked to fill in lots of different reports, whether they be for carbon audits, land use or whatever, and now there is this. Is there any way of pulling the different systems together?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
Do you have any preliminary findings from the pilots on outcome-based approaches? Are they helping to influence the payment model? What connections do you have with other projects that are going on, such as Quality Meat Scotland’s monitor farm programme and the work that the Nature Friendly Farming Network is doing on peer-to-peer support and on how things could and should change?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
Have you been linking into the monitor farms and the work of the Nature Friendly Farming Network?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
I do not have a supplementary, but I was agreeing, because I remember being at a meeting where a farmer spoke passionately about that. He is based on Lismore and, in the 1970s, he had been thinking about how to increase crops, specifically strawberries. He said that, from the smell when he put the chemicals on the field, he should have realised that he was killing things.
I was just nodding in agreement, convener. I am not entirely sure why you have come to me. I apologise for going off on a tangent.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
I would be interested in hearing about NatureScot’s inputs to the development of the tiered route map, specifically those that might impact on the west coast of Scotland, where my constituency is. Have you been involved in discussions on less favoured area support scheme payments?
Secondly—and this is at a slight tangent—I would also like to ask about the geese payments that NatureScot manages.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
My questions have been answered, too. As I represent Argyll and Bute, I was very interested to hear those comments about regionalisation and making things fit for purpose for different types of farming.
If it is okay, convener, I will move on to the next section of questions.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
Thank you.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
I have one very quick question. We have been focusing on trying to maintain different bird species across Scotland, but do you have any thoughts on plants? There are, for example, rare orchids in my constituency. What about the impacts that agricultural reform will have on them and on insects such as the marsh fritillary?
11:00Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Future Agriculture Policy
Meeting date: 15 March 2023
Jenni Minto
That is an interesting way of looking at it: they are not less favourable areas, but areas that can create great biodiversity and that can be used for carbon sequestration. The other important thing that I should mention is the sustainability of the rural population, which must be built into the thinking on all of this.
If the convener does not stop me from doing so, I want to ask specifically about the geese payments and where you see them fitting into the tiers, if at all.
