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 2119 contributions
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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Mairi Gougeon
You are absolutely right. I took away from the evidence the point about the importance of flexibility, as everyone will have a different starting point. For example, the local authorities from which the committee heard—Argyll and Bute Council and East Ayrshire Council—have undertaken the journey and are a lot further along the road. They talked about the importance of flexibility, because it has been slightly easier in some respects for some local authorities than it will be for others to meet our good food nation ambitions. It is important that there is flexibility in relation to the plans in order to enable local authorities to establish outcomes that are meaningful for them.
It might have been Jayne Jones from Argyll and Bute Council—forgive me if I have got that wrong—who said that, if we were to set a target of 60 per cent for Scottish food in local authority procurement, although that might be okay for some councils, it would be an enormous challenge for others. The provisions that we have set out in the bill provide flexibility in that respect and allow local circumstances to be recognised.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Mairi Gougeon
If that is the DPLR Committee’s recommendation, I will, of course, consider it.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Mairi Gougeon
They could all be. I met the Scottish Food Coalition recently, as well as having read its evidence to the committee. All the targets and measures that the SFC has talked about are critical and are areas that we would look to address. However, as I have said, we want to set out outcomes in the national plan, which is where we would look to address a lot of those issues. As was highlighted in the evidence, there are a lot of targets out there. We need to collate those targets, but what I am particularly interested in, and what is critical, is how we deliver on the outcomes.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Mairi Gougeon
That is the thing. It is hard because, as we have discussed, everybody is at a different stage. Without knowing the detail of what is going to be in local authority plans, it is not possible to quantify things at this stage, but the on-going discussion that we have been having with local authorities and COSLA will be important as we see what, if any, extra resource will be required. Some local authorities already have that built in through the food-related work that they have been doing, and you have cited an example. There is also the funding that has already been allocated to local authorities to support food-related matters, such as free school meals. We would have an on-going dialogue to identify any challenges regarding the implementation of the plans.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Mairi Gougeon
We are taking forward the commitment and that detailed piece of work is at an early stage. I will keep the committee updated as the work progresses.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Mairi Gougeon
Because of all the groundwork that has been done for the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill. It was unfortunate that, in the previous session of Parliament, the bill’s introduction was delayed. It was a case of trying to introduce it at the earliest possible opportunity.
It is also about giving effect to the right to food. Although the right to food will be incorporated into Scots law through the human rights bill, it is vital that we have introduced the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill, so that there is a framework that underpins the work that we are doing to deliver our good food nation ambitions. We should not delay that process.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Mairi Gougeon
The proposed obligation relates to public authorities, but that is not to say that there would not be an impact on private industry as a result of that.
I would be happy to get back to the committee on how such bodies might be considered and what the impact of that might be, if that would be helpful.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Mairi Gougeon
The detail of the outcomes that we will be setting out and hoping to achieve will be in the good food nation plans. As far as the oversight and monitoring of that is concerned, the bill itself talks about how progress will be monitored, and there will be periodic reports on and reviews of the plans, which are set out in the legislation, too. We have to report on our plans every two years, with a review after five, and there will be opportunities at those different stages for scrutiny to take place. Again, though, I will be keen to see what is in the stage 1 report and whether the committee feels that that has not necessarily been set out in the bill, that the provision is not strong enough or that there is a greater role for parliamentary scrutiny.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Mairi Gougeon
The costs in that regard for health boards were expected to be negligible because they already have in place a number of policies in relation to food. Officials might want to elaborate on that.
Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee
Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 23 February 2022
Mairi Gougeon
It was interesting to go through the evidence and hear comments on that. Obviously, a number of different bodies have different and specific roles and responsibilities. The committee has heard from some of those bodies in taking evidence. The work that we committed to undertake, and are undertaking, to properly scrutinise that will help us to fully assess what that landscape looks like and how we can develop work in relation to that.
