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 1381 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Christine Grahame
I will ask about training in relation to muirburn. Section 10 is on “Application for muirburn licence”. Subsection (3) says:
“An application under subsection (1) ... must be made ... to the Scottish Ministers, and ... in such manner and form as the Scottish Ministers may require”.
Would you consider including in that application a requirement that someone who is applying to carry out muirburn on peatland should confirm that they have undergone training?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Christine Grahame
You would consider that.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Christine Grahame
That is good. Thank you.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Christine Grahame
I am quite happy. I am looking at section 7(2) and proposed new section 16AA(8) and at the suspension that takes place whether or not the relevant authority is satisfied. I am looking at that and, in my view, you do specify. The bill talks about and defines an “official investigation”, talks about a “relevant authority” and then defines what a “relevant offence” is. A number of other statutes are referred to.
If I am right, it would be a pretty dramatic circumstance if a relevant authority such as NatureScot suspended a licence there and then. Something pretty dramatic and obvious would have to have happened. I think that I am also right in understanding that that could be taken straight to appeal.
I have one thing to ask, although you may be unable to answer. How quickly would an appeal be taken? Would it be like an interim interdict, which can be repealed and removed the next day? Would it be quite quick, depending on circumstance, or would someone sit for months waiting for a criminal prosecution and with their licence suspended or amended? Because of its impact, could the process be accelerated by the sheriff? That is what I am trying to find out. That would be a better way of looking at it. It would depend on the circumstances, but I think that that is an important thing to know.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Christine Grahame
The 2020 act seems a bit of a devil, because it would apply to practically anything, including snares and vaping products.
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Christine Grahame
I very much welcome the Scottish Government’s investment in the great tapestry of Scotland in Galashiels.
Is the minister aware that former Galashiels weaver Robert Coltart was the author of perhaps a world-first advertising jingle, “Ally Bally Bee”, to sell his Coulter’s candy? No singing, please. Would the Scottish Government be supportive—I am not seeking cash, so the minister can relax—of a small and humble museum dedicated to that intriguing and mischievous man, perhaps near where we already have an excellent statue of him, in Galashiels?
Meeting of the Parliament
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 28 June 2023
Christine Grahame
To ask the Scottish Government what support it has provided to cultural activities in the Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale constituency. (S6O-02428)
Meeting of the Parliament
Scottish Constitution
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Christine Grahame
The Conservative and Labour amendments allude to or promulgate the proposition that a written constitution is an abstract that displaces the real and current issues for the people of Scotland such as the economy, the cost of living crisis, free access to healthcare at the point of need, a warm affordable home, a decent living wage, the right to withdraw labour, the right to be free of weapons of mass destruction and the ability to provide a sanctuary to those who are fleeing from persecution. A written constitution is the framework and foundation of a just society in which human rights, the rights of our children, the rights of the vulnerable, the rights that I have just referred to and—I say to Willie Rennie, who is not here—the rights of my constituents are fundamental and protected. It is a contract with the people, who are sovereign and have remained so despite the union in 1707. In 1953, MacCormick v Lord Advocate, session case 396, on appeal to the Inner House, Lord President Cooper, obiter dictum, said that
“The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle”,
and this was restated in the claim of right, which was signed on 30 March 1989 and said:
“We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.”
Yet the UK Parliament has placed what is, to all intents and purposes, a permanent veto on the Scots exercising their sovereign right through a referendum.
I remind the unionists in here that, in 2014, the Scottish people were told that, if they voted yes to independence, they would be thrown out of the EU. We voted 62 per cent to remain and we were dragged out against our will.
Given that there is no written UK constitution, Westminster has free rein to undermine and even erode basic human rights, especially those of the vulnerable: the rape clause; the bedroom tax; providing a haven in Scotland for nuclear weapons; and, for those seeking sanctuary, the irony, given its imperial past, of a reverse slave trade, involving paying for the shipping of desperate migrants to Rwanda, whose own breach of human rights the UK has questioned. We, in this Parliament, find that our protection of those rights is restricted and is being eroded in the context not only of a majority of members whose parties’ manifestos are committed to an independent Scotland but of a majority of Scottish MPs: 45 SNP to six Tory, one Labour and four Liberal Democrat.
Independence with a written constitution would mean that no Scottish Parliament could unilaterally remove or amend the rights of the Scottish people that were embedded in that constitution. To do so would require the consent of the people, who are sovereign. That is not what the Westminster Parliament does, day in and day out. Such a constitution would be pragmatic in its implementation, giving rights and remedies to the people of Scotland should any Scottish Government default. Those rights are the stuff of fact, not fiction.
16:21Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Christine Grahame
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether childminding development officers have a significant role to play in supporting and assisting childminders in their professional development. (S6O-02420)
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Christine Grahame
I thank the minister for her answer and I share her views on the valuable contribution of childminders.
I refer to written answer S6W-19156, dated 21 June this year, which advises that the Scottish Borders have a childminding development officer contracted through the Scottish Childminding Association to Scottish Borders Council. Unfortunately, local childminders have advised me that the position is not to be renewed and that causes them and me concern. Does the minister agree?
