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 5030 contributions
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
In our previous evidence session, we heard from Duncan Sharp, who is the director of the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers Federation, that there is no route map for apprenticeships in renewables. Does the Government need to take a lead on that?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Agenda item 2 is evidence from two panels of witnesses on the Building (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2023.
The first of the evidence sessions will be in round-table format, and for our first panel we are joined in the room by Fionna Kell, who is director of policy at Homes for Scotland; David Bookbinder, who is director of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations; Peter Drummond, who is the chair of the, practice committee of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland; and Alan Stark, who is the chair of the sustainability and building design committee at the Scottish Property Federation. We are also joined online by Charlotte Lee, who is the chief executive of the Heat Pump Association; and Duncan Sharp, who is the director of the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers Federation, otherwise known as—I just want to say this—SNIPEF. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting.
I want to begin our conversation by inviting everyone to introduce themselves very briefly. I will begin: I am the convener of the committee and I represent the Highlands and Islands region.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Good morning, and welcome to the 20th meeting in 2023 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are in silent mode and that all other notifications are turned off during the meeting.
Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Do members agree to take items 5, 6 and 7 in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Thank you for that detail and background. It is good to know that we are manufacturing air-source heat pumps in Scotland.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Thank you for flagging that up—it caught my attention, too. We have the national planning framework, and I sense that it is bringing in a refresh, so that is hopeful. What you describe is another reason why we need to take that approach, so that we actually start to move through and get those wrinkles out of the system. We could also look into that issue and help with it.
I will bring in Miles Briggs. Miles, we have touched on some of what you wanted to ask about, but you can come on in.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Do you believe that these regulations send the signals that you just mentioned?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Would tax breaks sit with the Scottish Government or the United Kingdom Government?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
When you are talking about the loans and cashback from the Government, which Government do you mean?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
I want to pick up on a few questions. In the earlier evidence session, we heard quite a lot about the impact that the proposals might have on small and medium-sized enterprises. Is that the case? Is any particular support needed?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Ariane Burgess
Minister, you mentioned that there were other options. Could you give us an indication of what they would be?