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.
Criathragan Hide all filters
Displaying 864 contributions
|
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 December 2024
Alasdair Allan
Yes, you are reading me right. I would not in any way seek to minimise the scientific evidence. However, much of that evidence is predicated, to some extent, on smoke outside houses, although some of the evidence is about smoke inside houses. Many of the scenarios that have been considered are about conurbations where solid fuel is burned. I do not wish to be complacent, but we do not have evidence of conurbations where that is happening.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 December 2024
Alasdair Allan
I am happy to try to respond to that, and I will ask officials to respond if they wish to come in on this.
I come back to the point that the measure that we are considering relates to the regulations on the building of new houses. I take seriously the learned reports on air quality—I do not dismiss any of that work—but it is important to be clear that you will struggle to find a new-build house in an urban area that has a wood-burning stove as the primary means of heating. In fact, statistics show that in the past three years, even before there was any talk of changes to the regulations, there was one new-build house in Aberdeen that had a wood-burning stove as its primary source of heating, none in Dundee, none in Edinburgh and none in Glasgow. There were 83 scattered across much of Scotland, many of which were, I take it, in rural areas, but certainly outwith all the cities.
Even with new-build houses, which again are what the regulations are about, you would be looking at between 12 and 16 in each of Scotland’s four biggest cities where a wood-burning stove was a secondary source of heating. It is important to draw the distinction that the regulations—this measure—is about new-build houses, and there is just no evidence that the concerns that have been expressed about new-build houses with wood-burning stoves are based in reality, in the sense that there are no such houses in any significant numbers.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee [Draft]
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 12 December 2024
Alasdair Allan
All that I would add is that the evidence that has been presented to the committee and is now on the public record will, I am sure, be available when the review of the cleaner air for Scotland 2 strategy review is done. I do not do not know whether it is likely to formally feature in part of that work, or not.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming in Scotland
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Alasdair Allan
We have talked a bit about the transparency of the data that exists, and you have talked about some of your preferences around that. Are there any developments to update the Scotland’s Aquaculture website? Related to that, are you able to say anything about how the data in the public domain in Scotland compares to that which is available in other countries?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming in Scotland
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Alasdair Allan
The second part of my question is around how the situation that you have described in terms of transparency and data compares with other places.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming in Scotland
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Alasdair Allan
Related to the last question, and specifically on regulation, does regulation need to get ahead of those scenarios? I know that it is not your responsibility, but do you think that there is a need for regulation to anticipate new technologies? If not, is the existing regulation adequate?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming in Scotland
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Alasdair Allan
In 2019, SEPA put in place revised arrangements for monitoring, particularly for finfish aquaculture. I realise that the witnesses have expressed their concerns, but are the revised arrangements that have been in place since 2019 any better from an environmental point of view?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming in Scotland
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Alasdair Allan
It is a question for the RSPCA. How were you—and possibly other agencies that you know of—involved in revising welfare standards for farmed Atlantic salmon? How were those standards developed? Did you find your involvement in them adequate?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming in Scotland
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Alasdair Allan
I should know this, but I will ask this question for the benefit of people watching, because I am sure that you are asked this regularly. The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals operates in Scotland and the RSPCA is often advertised as operating in England and Wales. Can you explain how that point becomes relevant when we are talking about salmon?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Salmon Farming in Scotland
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Alasdair Allan
Thank you, convener. Can you hear me?
