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 2435 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Mark Ruskell
You said that you were not persuaded at this point and that you did not feel that the proposal was proportionate. That was your starting point. Where does public opinion sit within this? We have spoken at length about the small number of people who own and race dogs at Thornton, but public opinion is strongly behind a ban on greyhound racing, which is what the petitioners want. The petition itself was the most signed petition in the 25-year history of the Scottish Parliament. Where do you think public opinions sits?
To go back to the legislation that was passed in the previous session of Parliament, which prohibited the performance, display and exhibition of wild animals in travelling circuses, at that time—and I think Mr Voas will know more about this, given that he worked on the Wild Animals in Travelling Circuses (Scotland) Bill—there were not any wild animals in travelling circuses in Scotland, or there were very few. Arguably, as there were not many animals involved in that, it probably was not the biggest animal welfare issue in Scotland at the time, but there was strong public support for a ban on the use of wild animals in travelling circuses and, to give the Government its due, it moved forward on that legislation, which was considered by the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee and passed by Parliament. What do you think about public opinion? Does that have any bearing with this Government?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Mark Ruskell
I think that you said earlier that you believe, through the evidence that you have heard, that there is a lesser scale of gambling at Thornton. What difference does that make to a dog?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Mark Ruskell
If you are licensing an activity that you know pretty well involves a certain level of injuries and deaths, are you not licensing animal cruelty and saying, “Yes, we will continue doing this because it is worth monitoring”?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Interests
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Mark Ruskell
I should declare that I have a member’s bill proposal for a “Prohibition of Greyhound Racing (Scotland) Bill”, which I am currently working on. I am an honorary associate member of the British Veterinary Association and I am also a beekeeper, which is probably of less relevance to today’s session—but you never know, it may come up.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Mark Ruskell
Where do you get your evidence from as a minister? You have an official there who is a long-qualified vet and has led a number of pieces of animal welfare legislation through the Parliament. The information that you have received about Thornton is from a friend, I think you said. I have quite strong anecdotal evidence that there are dogs that race at Thornton that are housed in a shed down at Seafield, so we could pop out at lunchtime and have a look at that. That could be good evidence, if you like.
I am interested in how we break through the anecdotal nature of this evidence and get clear evidence about the nature of the risks of licensed and unlicensed tracks and, therefore, the case for reform. That might be licensing—although it appears that you are undecided about whether licensing has a role—or a phase out, which is obviously being proposed in my member’s bill. Are you open to evidence or is it fixed now? You have had the letter and that is it?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Mark Ruskell
It is there, yes.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Mark Ruskell
Are dogs raced differently at Thornton compared to Shawfield? Are they raced at different speeds? What is the difference in inherent risk if the tracks are the same?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Mark Ruskell
If a dog is racing at Thornton or a dog is racing at Shawfield, what does that lesser scale gambling environment mean in terms of animal welfare and where is the evidence that you have—
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Mark Ruskell
GBGB has standards and, for example, a requirement for a vet at trackside. Are you saying that it is preferable to have an unlicensed environment in that although the tracks are the same and the risk to the dogs is the same, it is better than a licensed GBGB set-up in terms of animal welfare?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Petition
Meeting date: 22 May 2024
Mark Ruskell
It will be a way of monitoring and getting data on deaths and injuries. However, we already have data on deaths and injuries. Across the UK, there were 22,284 dogs with significant injuries between 2018 and 2022 and, I think, 868 dogs that died. Those figures include the numbers from Shawfield in Glasgow where, as I said earlier, the injury rate was slightly higher than the GB average. How much more data do you need? It could be the fact that, if Thornton does not continue to race, you will never get the data, but you already have a lot of data about dogs racing around tracks at 40mph. How many times do we need dogs racing around a track at 40mph to recognise that they break their legs, they have catastrophic injuries and they get put down?
