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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 5898 contributions
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Finlay Carson
Okay. Thank you.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Finlay Carson
The Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee reported, or identified, a lack of scientific data into the interactions between farmed and wild salmon. Can you tell us whether the research for that has developed over the past six years since that committee’s recommendations, and is there still a knowledge gap? Whoever feels most qualified to answer should answer.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Finlay Carson
Yes.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Finlay Carson
The next item of business is to commence our follow-up inquiry into salmon farming in Scotland by hearing from two panels of witnesses. This is the first of a number of evidence sessions that we will hold over the coming months. Our inquiry follows the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s extensive inquiry in session 5. In 2018, that committee produced its report, which included 65 recommendations for the Government, its agencies and the aquaculture industry to take forward in order to improve salmon farming.
I make it clear from the outset that, through our work, we do not intend to reopen the various debates on salmon farming in Scotland that were explored in depth during that committee’s inquiry. Our inquiry quite simply involves assessing the level of progress that has been made in implementing the recommendations that were agreed by our predecessor committee.
With that disclaimer out of the way, I am pleased to welcome our first panel of witnesses, who are representing environmental and animal welfare non-governmental organisations. We are joined by John Aitchison, from the Coastal Communities Network’s aquaculture group; Sean Black, senior scientific officer for aquaculture at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; Sarah Evans, aquaculture policy officer at the Marine Conservation Society; and Rachel Mulrenan, Scotland director of WildFish.
I also welcome Edward Mountain, who is attending today’s meeting. I will bring you in after members have completed their questions. Do you have any interests to declare?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Finlay Carson
Thank you.
We have about 90 minutes for questions, and I will kick off. It has been estimated that salmon farming was worth approximately £760 million to the Scottish economy in 2021, and it provides more than 1,500 full-time jobs. In your view, does salmon farming bring economic and social benefits to Scotland? If so, how could those benefits be improved?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Finlay Carson
As no one else wants to respond to Elena Whitham’s questions, we will move on to questions from Ariane Burgess. Ariane, part of your question about escapes has been answered. Do you have a supplementary?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Finlay Carson
Would anybody like to come in? Sam Martin?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Finlay Carson
Is that research capability available in other parts of the world? Is it just Scotland where there is an issue?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Finlay Carson
So, is it your perception that the industry is making enough progress quickly enough to address these concerns?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 5 June 2024
Finlay Carson
Please direct your comments through the chair.