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 2089 contributions
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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Avian Flu in Scotland
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
Sheila, you have been taken through the mill today. Hats off to you.
Has egg production in the country been affected by bird flu?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Avian Flu in Scotland
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
So, the reports that avian flu is causing the egg shortage are not entirely correct.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Avian Flu in Scotland
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
That is exactly the point that I was making—you have hit the nail on the head. In 2001, Scotland had a complete national shutdown because of foot-and-mouth disease, which devastated the industry. I remember that clearly, and it was a living hell. However, in 2007 there was a much smaller outbreak that could be contained in pockets. Is having independence crucial in making such decisions?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
I will try to rewind back to where we were. First, however, I emphasise the point about the purpose of the bill not being to stop hunting altogether or the ability for rough shooters to continue to carry out their activities, which they will do perfectly legitimately—with minor adaptations.
Last week, Ross Ewing gave what I think was a genuine position on the point that the general public might not understand the position. The bill will be announced in the public domain as “Hunting with dogs has now been banned.” Is there something that the Government can do to update the right of responsible access so that people understand that rough shooting is a legitimate thing to do in the countryside and does not fall within the bill, unless somebody is going to use it as a loophole? Is there something that the Government can do at a later stage to ensure that the public understand what the position of the bill is?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
That is absolutely correct. On that specific point, I will quote Detective Sergeant Billy Telford. He said:
“We have talked about evidence and so forth, but we will still be able to use common sense and a degree of judgment to ask whether, in the balance of probability, an activity is a legitimate ... shoot or something else. That commonsense approach will take into account the types of dogs that are used, too.”—[Official Report, Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee, 23 November 2022; c 13.]
The police are already on board with how the bill is going to work. However, I understand the concern of Ross Ewing and others that the public might not understand it as well as we do. The convener’s point about being taken down so many rabbit holes—pardon the pun—of all the permutations that could or could not happen is what the shooting fraternity is coming back with in asking what will happen.
I understand that there is no way of legislating for all the possible scenarios but, given the way in which shoots are currently conducted, they will be able to manage themselves. Their concern is that the police will be called out every other day on some basis or other. There has to be an understanding that common sense will be applied and that the relationship between the police and the shooting community has to be a strong one. Do you accept that?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Avian Flu in Scotland
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
The problem, from the Government’s point of view, is that housing is not necessarily the thing that is going to stop the spread of the outbreak.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Avian Flu in Scotland
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
Okay. One other thing that slightly concerned me earlier is an issue that I was aware of although the implications had not really dawned on me. The vast majority of turkey producers in Scotland are small-scale producers and they will buy poults for finishing. Where do those poults come from?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Avian Flu in Scotland
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
The primary problem is price to producer.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Avian Flu in Scotland
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
That is helpful.
Going back to the implications of imposing housing orders, a lot of the stuff that we are hearing just now is about a demand to get the birds housed. Your comment about a factor of 44 versus a factor of 2 was telling. The housing order was the thing that was going to protect the birds. As a livestock keeper myself, I know that biosecurity is always the thing that we have to worry about. It is important that we get across the message that personal biosecurity is far more important than the actual housing, given that, as you say, there is a factor of 44 as against a factor of 2. Are we getting that message across adequately?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
Meeting date: 30 November 2022
Jim Fairlie
Minister, last week, Robbie Marsland made the point that the purpose of not making the exemption for rough shoots is not about what is happening now and the legal way in which shoots are conducted now, but is about who might try to tag on to that and call something a rough shoot. During that evidence session, I became more comfortable with the way in which the bill is going on that basis. It is not about what is happening now—as you have just said, the people who conduct shoots at the moment do it in an effective and legal manner. We are talking about what would happen if people started to use such an exemption after the bill was implemented. Would that also be your concern?
