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 692 contributions
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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Màiri McAllan
Exactly.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Màiri McAllan
I want to accommodate what I can. What time do you think we might finish?
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Màiri McAllan
There is a multitude of ways in which we could do that. I am open-minded to ways that allow us to strike the balance that I highlighted to Jenni Minto between achieving what we want to achieve—that is, the highest possible animal welfare standards and no chasing and killing of wild mammals in the countryside—and facilitating people for whom two dogs are not enough and no other methods are available.
As I recall, we have discussed the possibility of people not necessarily being required to resubmit evidence for a licence application every time, but, frankly, everything has yet to be worked out. The weather is an example of a practical reality that I would want to be reflected.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Màiri McAllan
I am trying to remind myself of the definition. We refer to it as
“searching for, stalking or flushing”.
That is relevant to one of the examples that I mentioned to Karen Adam. If we tried to provide an exhaustive definition of hunting, we would eventually find ourselves in a circumstance in which someone could say, “I wasn’t undertaking any of those activities; I was doing something else”. They would find themselves outside the scope of the offence.
With regard to expanding a non-exhaustive list of what could constitute hunting, I do not disagree. That could be helpful.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Màiri McAllan
I am. That is another good question. During my discussion with Rachael Hamilton, I explained the reasons why we have included the welfare of rabbits, one of which is to bring them into line with welfare concerns about hares. The second reason is that people use rabbits as a cover for hare coursing, which we want to avoid. Of course, the bill will not prevent the control of rabbits and it will not stop the use of two dogs to help to flush rabbits from cover to waiting guns.
I am comfortable that there will still be scope for control under the bill, but it will be done more humanely, and the bill will protect other wild animals in the countryside and allow us to have clarity about when hare coursing is undertaken.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Màiri McAllan
Pheasants are not covered by the bill.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Màiri McAllan
I believe in appeal processes, and there is an internal review and appeal process in NatureScot. I asked the same question as you have, and it was explained to me that that is NatureScot’s structure for dealing with that, so it does have one. I am supportive of review and appeal processes and keen to see that they are in place and available.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Màiri McAllan
We are undertaking engagement with stakeholders throughout the development of the bill, and we are listening closely to the evidence that the committee takes. All of that will feed into NatureScot’s development of the licensing scheme. Hugh Dignon said that we would be happy to keep the Parliament up to date as that develops, but the scheme will be finalised after the bill is passed, as has been the case with other pieces of legislation, most recently the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020, in which we brought hares within protected status. We designed and finalised the licensing scheme for them after the passage of the bill.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Màiri McAllan
The limit is based on, first, the fact that it will substantially reduce the ability to chase and kill and, secondly, an assessment of what is possible with two dogs versus what people are seeking to use them for.
As I said in my opening remarks, Lord Bonomy recognised that there would be circumstances in which two dogs would not be sufficient. He pointed directly to terrain such as thick forest or hill ground. That is why a two-dog limit, bearing in mind that it helps to keep dogs under control and that England and Wales have successfully introduced such a limit, is a reasonable baseline, to be supplemented with a licensing scheme where necessary. Lord Bonomy has commented that the two together form a workable approach that he could support.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 29 June 2022
Màiri McAllan
I am sorry, but I am not sure what you mean. I am pursuing all the reasons for which a dog may be used. I come to the issue from the basis that we cannot allow an animal in any of those circumstances to be chased and killed. That is where the animal welfare concern is. As long as we seek to avoid that, whether the dogs are used to kill a fox, protect lambs or help to eradicate a non-native species, the welfare element lies in not allowing the chasing and the killing.
