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 2195 contributions
|
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
Ultimately, as Allan Gibb set out, the available scientific evidence indicates that any disturbance to the sea bed can disrupt spawning cod. We want to make sure that we protect spawning cod as much as possible, which is why there are no exemptions for the closure, in line with our policy over the previous couple of years.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
You have raised quite a few points, some of which I would be happy to follow up on. I would have to take advice on sharing the PhD work, given the stage that it is at. Having a peer review process is important—I could be criticised at committee for using an evidence base when a peer review process has not taken place. Rather than commit to that today, I am happy to follow up on that. I would need to take further advice on that.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
Absolutely. Broadly, it is about working together and managing that competition for space. Where we have had those pilots, they have been operating well, but I am more than happy to follow up with more detail on those projects.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
Yes, I am happy to provide more information. As I have mentioned, Gillian Martin, when she was in post as Minister for Energy and the Environment, set out some more information to the committee. We have an additional three strands of work that we are looking to take forward in relation to the evidence gathering and monitoring. We have committed to resourcing that and taking that work forward.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
You are absolutely right. There are a couple of different forums. The FMAC is important in ensuring that we have that engagement with our fishers across the board. There are a number of sub-groups of that—I mentioned the inshore fisheries sub-group and some of the work that it is looking to take forward. That is a really important forum for engagement across the piece.
I also point to the three strands of work that I alluded to. It has been important to ensure that we engage in relation to that, particularly with the CFA. I appreciate the constructive way in which the CFA has come forward. It very much wants to work with us, because it is in all our best interests to ensure that we are working on the same basis and that we involve the CFA in that process. It is important that we take forward that work with the CFA. We are having discussions with the CFA about how it could potentially be involved in the strand of work on having a science presence on marine protection vessels. After the meeting that the minister had, there have been follow-up discussions with officials, because the issue that you raise is an important one.
Coby Needle wants to come in with more information on a specific point.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
I am not sure what the process for that would be. I would have to take further advice. Again, we are basing the order on the best available scientific advice. I understand that there are different views and that people are not necessarily content with this position, but we have to base the order on the best information that is available at this point.
I appreciate your pushing me, exactly because of the important points that you have raised. We are dealing with people’s livelihoods and I recognise the impact. This is a short-term closure and, ultimately, we are doing it for the protection of the stock.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
I fully appreciate the strength of feeling that the instrument has elicited, as I highlighted in my opening remarks. I would like to make a few points of clarification, because we have broadly set out the key arguments and why we have introduced the order.
Rhoda Grant made a point about bycatch, but that is not necessarily the issue. We want the maximum protection for spawning cod, and in that regard it is the disturbance of the sea bed that is predominantly the issue, given the number of creels and the disturbance that they can cause. I just wanted to clarify that.
On Rachael Hamilton’s comments, I do not know whether the member was referring to the partial BRIA that was published with the consultation, but a full BRIA was published with the instrument. I would have thought that that would be available to the committee. Also, enhanced monitoring has been put in place since the previous period of closure, as I touched on in my comments.
I have set out our position. I appreciate the impact on fishers, but, ultimately, this measure is about the protection of the stock and ensuring that we have maximum protection for spawning cod.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
I hope that we have been able to evidence that through the work that we have undertaken so far and, ultimately, through all the commitments that we have made throughout the whole process about how we develop policy. We want to do this with farmers and crofters because, as I have said a number of times today, they know their own business best. It is critical that any future system provides them with the flexibility to enable them to make the choices and undertake the measures that will work for their businesses. You can see some of those measures—we have published what some of that might look like. It is absolutely built in to everything that we do and everything that we have set out as part of the route map and the information that we are providing. What we are introducing ultimately has to be deliverable and it has to work for our farmers and crofters. It is in our best interests to continue that work with them to ensure that we get this right.
The points that you touched on and that I highlighted in previous responses to Rhoda Grant, including some of the points that are set out in section 26, enable us to do that. It is about having that consultation and engagement and, of course, reviewing the code, because, as we have discussed already today, things can change and improve in this space—things are developing all the time.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
Again, if the committee has any particular views on the review period, I am happy to look at that point and consider it, but I want to clarify that we have already set out our expectations for support going forward, including the minimum standards that we are expecting, what conditions will apply to support from 2025 and what support will be introduced in 2026. I just want to be absolutely clear on that. If there are any other views on the review period, I am happy to consider them.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Meeting date: 21 February 2024
Mairi Gougeon
It is not possible for me to set that out at the moment. I cannot say that we would be looking to introduce other particular targets as part of the rural support plan, but we have statutory targets in relation to emissions reduction and the targets that are being looked at through the natural environment bill. Of course, we will have to consider those.
