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 2195 contributions
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Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Rural Affairs and Islands Remit
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
As I outlined previously, we have secured about £486 million of fishing opportunities, but, within that, there are changes in the different stocks from previous years. One of the main challenges is the cut of around 30 per cent to the monkfish total allowable catch. I am really keen that we work together with industry and see how we can better develop the evidence base around that.
Although we have seen that cut in monkfish catch, there have been increases in other stocks, which are looking quite strong. We have seen some quite big increases in North Sea cod, North Sea haddock and whiting. Detailed information on the percentage changes is set out in a letter that I sent to the committee in January, but we have seen some positive moves in relation to some stocks. However, again, there are particular areas of challenge on some species that are valuable to Scotland.
10:30Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Rural Affairs and Islands Remit
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
Yes. The process for legislative consent had been triggered, but the UK Government said it would be carrying on regardless of whether it received that confirmation, so that has been frustrating throughout the process.
The key concern in all of this is that the bill contains powers that would mean that the UK Government and its ministers could amend or revoke devolved legislation. There is no consent mechanism in the legislation. Even though there are 587 instruments in the schedule, the whole of retained EU legislation, where it relates to devolved areas, is open to the UK Government. We are talking about thousands of pieces of legislation that the UK Government would have the power to change until 2026.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Rural Affairs and Islands Remit
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
That is the commitment that we have set out, because we realise the importance of the issues.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
There is a project board, which has been overseeing the full cost recovery. My officials will probably be able to tell you who is on that board, but I know that there are stakeholders from each of the Administrations on it.
Farmers and crofters have known that the policy is coming and, because of the engagement that has been undertaken by APHA, we do not expect a significant impact. We have been overcharging in some areas and undercharging in others, which is why the phasing in of increased charges is important. We will introduce a 50 per cent uplift this year and will increase that to 100 per cent full cost recovery next year. Phasing that in, rather than doing it in one fell swoop, is a way of recognising concerns about charges.
I am sure that I will be corrected if I am wrong, but I think that the only exception is in relation to work at border control posts, where there will be 100 per cent cost recovery this year.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
As far as I am aware, no concerns in relation to that have been expressed.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Rural Affairs and Islands Remit
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
As the committee will be aware, our consultation on proposals for a future agriculture bill closed last December. We have been analysing the consultation results, and we will be in a position to publish the response to the consultation shortly. As I have previously outlined, we have a commitment to introducing an agriculture bill to the Parliament this year, and we are still on track to deliver that.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Rural Affairs and Islands Remit
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
I am happy to provide an update. I do not know whether you want me to run through every single action, but I point the committee to the delivery plan for each of the actions that is set out in the future fisheries management strategy, which we published last year. That shows where we are against the strategy and how we intend to deliver against the actions. I will draw out some key pieces of work as examples, and Annabel Turpie will, no doubt, want to add to those.
The first action in the future fisheries management strategy is about promoting fisheries as a safe career of choice for people. We have provided Seafish with more than £400,000 to deliver free safety training for the fishing industry, and we have spent about £2.1 million on encouraging new entrants into the industry, which was funded through the marine fund Scotland.
Work has been progressing in other areas, too. The future catching policy is listed as an action in the strategy. We consulted on that last year and we are due to publish the results of the consultation soon. It was quite a technical consultation. However, when we look to implement the policies, we expect to see some positive steps forward.
There are also actions in the strategy around local resilience, connecting to local markets and enhancing global markets for seafood. We have published a seafood strategy. We have talked about the importance of our seafood trade, of confidence in it and of its resilience, but our policy commitments relating to remote electronic monitoring and vessel tracking are important in delivering that, too. We have had a consultation on remote electronic monitoring, which we launched at the same time as the future policy consultation, and we hope to be in a position to publish the results of that soon. Many pieces of work have been under way.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Rural Affairs and Islands Remit
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
There have been further developments in relation to that since the delivery plan was published. We have talked about strengthening our regional inshore fisheries groups. There has been a refresh of that network and we appointed six new chairpeople. We also extended the groups’ reach out to 12 nautical miles. That is one development.
We have also done a refresh of our fisheries management and conservation group and how it operates. That is about getting all the different stakeholders round the table and trying to move forward on a lot of the key areas and issues that we face. That group has been established with terms of reference. We are using a hub-and-spoke model, so we have the main FMAC group and four sub-groups that feed into it. We have one on inshore fisheries, one on scallops and one on fishing and climate change. The name of the last one has escaped me, but I am sure that Annabel Turpie can provide that information.
As well as the refresh of that group and the regional inshore fisheries groups, we hope to undertake a review of the regional inshore fisheries groups in the summer next year, just to see how all of that is operating.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Rural Affairs and Islands Remit
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
Absolutely, but it is in everybody’s best interests to ensure that we have sustainable fisheries. That is what we want to see, and it is what the industry wants to see going forward.
We are seeing some fantastic pieces of work around our coastline that are being led by fishers. We have a couple of inshore fisheries pilots at the moment and, so far, they are showing us really positive results. There is the Mull crab box and we have one in the Outer Hebrides as well. That brings me back to what Annabel Turpie said about working with the different sectors, bringing all those different threads together and seeing how we can move forward.
I think that everybody appreciates that our seas are changing—there is no doubt about that—but we all want to ensure that we have a sustainable sector and sustainable industries. Ultimately, that is what we want to work together to achieve.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Rural Affairs and Islands Remit
Meeting date: 31 May 2023
Mairi Gougeon
I would be happy to. Work has been undertaken by Marine Scotland scientists together with scientists from the University of Strathclyde to look initially at the stock assessments for cod, haddock and whiting. They have been collating the information that we have received from scientific surveys as well as information from commercial fisheries. With that information, they are looking to develop qualitative stock assessments.
Annabel Turpie, do you want to add anything further about the monitoring?
