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 1499 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I suspect that the minister has got the gist about Acorn. The point was probably well made.
After the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—there was a great deal of optimism among investors. However, in giving evidence to this inquiry, the Association of British Insurers noted that there was still a shortage of packages that its investors could crowdfund. That speaks to risk, appetite, packages and so on. Are you able to give a bit more flavour on that? There is clearly a huge appetite for it, but we need things that people can invest in. Will you tell us more about your thinking on that, because we are not getting to the scale that we need to, at the moment?
11:30Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Good morning. The questions are somewhat loosely connected, but I hope that you will be able to pick up Ms Chapman’s question, too.
I want to probe the issue of capital requirements. Globally, hundreds of trillions of dollars of investment are required to meet what we need to do. My colleague Gordon MacDonald touched earlier on the withdrawal of National Grid and Shell from the east coast cluster. That will have been noted by international investors, and a view will have been reached on whether that was about competence or other reasons. However, it will have influenced the appetite for investment. In general terms, what specific risks do you have in your risk register for attracting international investors? What risks do you have that you are therefore seeking to mitigate to get to the scale of investment that we need?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 10 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I will finish with one final point. If you ask what is in international companies’ risk registers in terms of investing in the UK, it is going straight after the Acorn carbon capture and storage project, which represents the most commoditisable investment for those companies. I am therefore rather surprised that that is not on your risk register.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I expect that Professor Martin will also have a view on that. Following my question to Professor Flinders about culture and behaviours, I want to ask about the relationship between complexity and risk and, therefore, any limitations on innovation. Based on your experience, how does the appetite for or attitude towards risk, linked to complexity, inadvertently limit innovation in the public sector in general terms?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
We are all pleased to hear about the updated FM. I am sure that we all agree on the worthiness of the bill, but this committee’s specific focus will always be on the money and the spend. You have indicated that there is uncertainty about the original estimates. I want to explore how you see the scale of the challenge going forward. We know that multiple areas of various sections are excluded from the original FM—those areas have no estimates at all. In addition to that, there is the group that you mentioned—I am sorry, but I have forgotten its name.
How will you assure yourself, first, that all costs are included, albeit in estimate form, and secondly, that the costs have taken account of what is now a high inflationary cost environment? Critically, I suppose that the question that I am probing is, to what extent will the FM be given the full weight it deserves, alongside the undoubted enthusiasm for what are some very strong policies?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Leading on from that, your submission also alludes to complexity—
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Thank you. I would like to finish off with Professor Flinders, since he was cut off in his prime, as it were. Throughout this whole conversation is the theme of maturity, whether it is about how we deal with risk, innovation, complexity or power. Do you have any final thoughts or reflections on what you have heard thus far? This is the academic side of decision making.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Do you have any bright ideas on that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
Thank you for that. I am laughing slightly, given that we are operating in a political environment.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 9 May 2023
Michelle Thomson
I do not disagree about any of the principles, but the devil will be in the detail. What I am looking for are your assurances that the multi-agency meetings will put an equivalent level of attention on the costs and the savings, which you have outlined, as they will on driving forward the policy. The last thing that you, as a new minister in post—and I appreciate that you are talking about something on which you have had no say—would want is for this to be subject to considerable cost overruns because the things that are missing from the FM are missing because they are complex and difficult and you do not have policy detail.
I suppose that I am looking for assurances, because some people think that the funding is quite dull compared with the policy; however, if you think that, you are taking a risk, and I would not want to see you do that. I am simply looking for your assurances that you will pass that on to the people who are supporting you.