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 2240 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Mairi Gougeon
Ultimately, the bill is about increasing diversity in land ownership.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Mairi Gougeon
We are listening to concerns that have been expressed about the potential for that. The only provision that we have at the moment is that, if land were to be lotted, a person could not buy multiple lots. We must be alive to potential loopholes—we want to avoid them wherever possible. We might need to take other factors into consideration, because we want to ensure that the measures that we introduce have the intended effect.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Mairi Gougeon
We are considering that as well. I recognise that it came through quite strongly that going to the tenant farming commissioner to appoint a valuer should be the next option and not necessarily the place to start.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Mairi Gougeon
As I said, work has been done on that and it will inform future guidance, which is the place to deal with that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Mairi Gougeon
That is one of the things that would depend on individual circumstances and whether a tenant has been given rights by the landowner to control the deer.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Mairi Gougeon
There are a number of factors. The matter was part of the consultation that was undertaken, and we have outlined some aspects in the policy memorandum.
In other countries, interventions or obligations after the point of sale, or obligations on potential buyers, tend to fall into a couple of areas. We think that there is an example of authorisation of buyers in Australia, but that is more about national security risks.
There are alternative purchase models. The Land Commission has done work on the SAFER model in France, for example, whereby a public body or an interim body would buy the land, and the owner of the land would be compelled to sell. The body would hold the land for an interim period before determining use of the land.
We have introduced the transfer test and the lotting procedures as we have because we could not identify an option that would allow lotting to be applied where the test was on the buyer. That is why lotting will apply before that point.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Mairi Gougeon
Andy, do you want to come in?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Mairi Gougeon
I come back to why we set out the provision in the way that we have, which is to ensure that bodies that report breaches have some experience in relation to land management and working with communities on the ground. We also wanted to guard against, and deal with, the potential for vexatious complaints. That is why we set out the bodies for reporting breaches in the way that we have. However, I have heard the evidence that the committee received, particularly from the Crofting Commission and other bodies, about what people feel should be on the list. Again, I am open to hearing the committee’s recommendations on that, although we have a power to add bodies to the list if it were felt that more should be added.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Mairi Gougeon
Again, I do not know whether you are talking about the valuation. Is that the specific point that you are getting at?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 18 February 2025
Mairi Gougeon
I do not think that it is a case of one can and one cannot. It is about how landowners deliver at scale. As I said, I have seen that when I visited projects, but small landholders can do exactly the same. It is about encouraging that co-operation. We see that with projects across Scotland—I think that there is a peatland restoration project with the crofting communities in the Outer Hebrides. There are also lots of international examples, some of which I know have already been mentioned to the committee in the evidence that it has heard.
The Land Commission did a study, too—I think that it was published around 2019—which looked at European comparisons and showed that work does not need to be done at scale for all the objectives to be met. It is about how we encourage that wider, landscape-scale co-operation. Again, that touches on other work that we are taking forward through regional land use partnerships. It is about how we can foster those relationships and encourage people to work together to help deliver the objectives that we want to see at scale.
