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 754 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 8 January 2025
Lorna Slater
They were unable to. Only South of Scotland Enterprise said that it is starting to collect that data. I am not sure how you evaluate the budgets that you give the enterprise agencies if we are not able to understand the impact of their different types of working.
I hear you saying that you want to get money out of the door. Everyone loves a handout and being given money, but maybe it is more effective to have a few more public sector workers teaching people how to get their own funding than it is to hand public money to private enterprises. We do not appear to have the data to establish that.
SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee
Meeting date: 12 December 2024
Lorna Slater
I do not have any interests that are relevant to the work of the committee. However, for the record, I reiterate my entry in the register of members’ interests, which states that I used to work for Orbital Marine Power, which is a tidal energy company. I am also a member of Unite the union.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Lorna Slater
I have one more question. Under the devolution settlement, the Scottish Parliament should be able to scrutinise and give consent to legislation that concerns devolved matters. The bill, as it is currently drafted, includes no requirement to obtain consent in all devolved areas.
The Scottish Greens agree with the Scottish Government that the legislation does not respect the devolution settlement, and will not give consent to it in its current drafting. Does the minister know whether the new Labour Government is open to redrafting the bill, or will this be the first incidence of its breaching the Sewel convention?
09:45Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Lorna Slater
I am going to assume that the bill was initiated before the general election under the Conservative Government, which—as the minister pointed out—took a different direction of travel.
How might the bill interact with the 2020 internal market act and how might it limit Scotland’s ability to take the lead on fully devolved environmental protection and our ability to maintain alignment with the EU?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 December 2024
Lorna Slater
Theoretically, could the bill not be overridden by the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Lorna Slater
I have only two questions—I have taken out the third so, hopefully, that will speed us up.
I have a detailed question about how deals can adapt to Government policy. I am concerned that the city region deals have been a mechanism for road expansion without accountability in relation to how that expansion affects climate emissions and traffic targets. Scotland has a goal to reduce traffic kilometres by 20 per cent, and Edinburgh and Glasgow have targets for 30 per cent. How have road building projects been assessed with respect to those targets? Is there a process for that? I ask because it appears that the city region deals have avoided democratic accountability on those specific points.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Lorna Slater
Matt Bailey, do you want to come in? I saw that you put your camera on.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Lorna Slater
Thank you very much. It sounds like the answer to this next question might be Transport Scotland, but I am going to ask it anyway.
The question will largely be directed to Paul Lawrence, because it is about flexibility and the role of the Scottish Government in projects, and specifically about the Sheriffhall roundabout. The estimated cost of that project has gone from £120 million to £300 million. Local residents have expressed concerns about trees being cut down and increased noise and pollution, and they wonder why that money is not being spent on public transport or active travel infrastructure—we all know that Winchburgh needs a train station, for example.
During the public inquiry, one of my constituents went to a meeting and he got an admission that the modelling did not show that the development was in line with traffic reduction targets, and in January last year the then transport and environment convener of the City of Edinburgh Council, Scott Arthur, said:
“I have been clear for some time that the £125 million Sheriffhall roundabout upgrade has no place in the Edinburgh City Region Deal—Edinburgh asked for housing.”
So, if local residents do not want it, the council does not want it, and it is not compatible with national or local traffic targets, who is deciding that this should go ahead and how can we stop it? What would the process for stopping it look like?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 4 December 2024
Lorna Slater
Thank you. I really appreciate that answer.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Lorna Slater
That is a good point. I would like Ms Young to come in, too. That is true. Some of this comes down to environmental review of the project. Because it has taken so long, further reviews have been done and now it might conflict with newer priorities, but it is still not able to move forward.