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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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Edward Mountain
There will be a division.
For
Lumsden, Douglas (North East Scotland) (Con)
Mountain, Edward (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Against
Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP)
Dunbar, Jackie (Aberdeen Donside) (SNP)
Lennon, Monica (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Macpherson, Ben (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (SNP)
Ruskell, Mark (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Edward Mountain
There will be a division.
For
Lumsden, Douglas (North East Scotland) (Con)
Mountain, Edward (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Against
Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP)
Dunbar, Jackie (Aberdeen Donside) (SNP)
Lennon, Monica (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Macpherson, Ben (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (SNP)
Ruskell, Mark (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Edward Mountain
Amendment 30, in the name of Graham Simpson, was debated with amendment 5. I remind members that amendments 30 and 31 are direct alternatives.
Amendment 30 not moved.
Amendment 31 moved—[Graham Simpson].
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Edward Mountain
The question is, that amendment 31 be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Edward Mountain
Amendment 32, in the name of Graham Simpson, was debated with amendment 5. I remind members that amendments 32 and 33 are direct alternatives.
Amendment 32 not moved.
Amendment 33 moved—[Graham Simpson].
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Edward Mountain
There will be a division.
For
Lumsden, Douglas (North East Scotland) (Con)
Mountain, Edward (Highlands and Islands) (Con)
Against
Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP)
Dunbar, Jackie (Aberdeen Donside) (SNP)
Lennon, Monica (Central Scotland) (Lab)
Macpherson, Ben (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (SNP)
Ruskell, Mark (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green)
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Edward Mountain
The result of the division is: For 2, Against 5, Abstentions 0.
Amendment 34 disagreed to.
Amendment 35 not moved.
Section 9 agreed to.
After section 9
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Edward Mountain
Before I move to the next section, I remind members that, as I said last week and have said previously in these meetings, I am a member of a family farming partnership in Moray. As such, we are involved in agriculture and own land. Also, I have regularly been on the receiving end of fly-tipping. The past two events were the dumping of mattresses and tyres barely three weeks ago, so I have an interest in the subject and I have made that clear.
Amendment 201, in the name of Murdo Fraser, is grouped with amendments 121 and 202 to 204. I remind members that amendments 201 and 121 are direct alternatives, as shown on the groupings paper. Douglas Lumsden will move amendment 201 and speak to the other amendments in the group.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Edward Mountain
Thank you. I call Edward Mountain—that is me, of course—to speak to amendment 121. [Laughter.] Apparently, I have to say “Edward Mountain” to ensure that it appears on the record, so I have done that.
I submitted amendment 121 ahead of Murdo Fraser submitting his amendment 201. I acknowledge the exceptional work that Murdo Fraser has done in relation to fly-tipping. The reason why I submitted my amendment was to stiffen the penalties for people who are responsible for fly-tipping. We should be under no illusion that fly-tipping involves only household waste; it also involves commercial and industrial waste. The waste that can be deposited on people’s land is phenomenal. The people who are responsible for dumping that waste can be people who cannot be bothered to go as far as the dump, but they can also be organised crime syndicates who are collecting rubbish and then dumping it out, or they can just be people who have been paid to dump it.
We heard in our stage 1 evidence that it is really important that we stop fly-tipping and make sure that waste goes to the right places to be recycled. In most cases, it is very easy to go to a recycling dump with your rubbish. Some councils have made that more difficult by organising booking systems—which are unhelpful, in my opinion—but it is still easy to do that. However, rubbish continues to be dumped in the countryside. The point of my amendment is to increase the fine in order to put people off.
It is deeply disconcerting when you spend a weekend picking up tyres, stacking them into trailers and taking them to the council tip to be charged £3 for every tyre that you put in, because somebody else has decided to dump them on your ground. Not long ago, I received a deep-freeze full of food from a shop that had obviously replaced its deep-freeze. Rather stupidly, they left the name of the shop in the deep-freeze, so I was able to return it to them. However, that is not always the case, and people end up having to clear up rubbish, which is why I want to see an increased fine to make it entirely clear that fly-tipping is inappropriate.
I believe that Mr Fraser has discussed his amendments with the Government and reached some agreement, so I will not move my amendment at stage 2. However, I will look at the bill at stage 3 to make sure that it is entirely clear that people who are commercially benefiting from fly-tipping on other people’s land, whether it be farmland or someone’s garden, pay a maximum fine, and, frankly, £1,000 as a cap on such fines does not do it. That is all that I have to say.
Mr Simpson wants to come in.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Edward Mountain
I absolutely understand that that power sits in legislation, but most landowners will get a letter from their council informing them that they have a responsibility to remove the waste. In most cases, the council is not clear about the fact that the landowner has an appeal, so, invariably, it is the landowner who has to pick up the rubbish. For example, in Moray, I do not think that there has been a single example of a fly-tipping notice being issued to any individual. Do you think that councils could do more?
