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 514 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
There was some discussion about knowledge of land transfers and about how communities could register their interest in land. What is the panel’s view on making land transfers and sales much more transparent? Should that information be available publicly, so that if a community has an interest, it can register that interest? Should there be an obligation on landowners, including owners of land of community significance, to always do that transparently?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
Thank you very much. I have some questions on a theme and then some supplementaries on evidence that was given previously, so bear with me if I appear to be dotting about a wee bit.
First, I will ask about urban land reform. Because of the way that land is defined in the bill, it means that urban land reform cannot really happen under this bill. What are the benefits of extending land reform to urban areas and how could that be done in practice?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
Thank you. There was discussion about a public interest test, which seems to fit quite well with this topic. What are the implications of our divergence from that internationally recognised test? What effect could that have on the bill?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 November 2024
Rhoda Grant
Does Jon Hollingdale have anything to add?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 30 October 2024
Rhoda Grant
I was not going to come in with a question, but it strikes me that some of the folk who might not have been totally happy with the move are those who already produce barn eggs. They will be sitting there, saying, “We are producing eggs in exactly the same way as those who would have normally produced free-range eggs, and they’re getting a premium for their eggs, even though they are all being produced the same way.” Were such concerns expressed?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
Rhoda Grant
The Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s report looked at issues that are common to many industries in rural Scotland, such as the lack of digital infrastructure and housing for staff in the industry. Recommendation 6 asked the Scottish Government to work with enterprise agencies and local authorities to look at how that could be addressed. What progress has been made on that recommendation? What is your experience of digital infrastructure and housing for staff?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
Rhoda Grant
Kimberley McKinnell, this question is about the Bakkafrost processing site in Stornoway. We are obviously concerned that it has closed. Can you give us the reasons for that happening? What issues caused the closure, and are they likely to arise in processing more widely? Can we expect more closures?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
Rhoda Grant
Salmon Scotland has lodged a service complaint to SEPA about the timeframes for dealing with licensing applications. Obviously, they were expected sooner. Has the issue been resolved, or is it on-going?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 2 October 2024
Rhoda Grant
I have a supplementary question to Ben Hadfield’s response. I understand that companies are investing in housing and infrastructure, which is welcome. My one concern is that, in the past, we have had issues with tied housing in rural areas. I would worry if our only solution to accommodation was tied housing, because, as David Brown said, we want to bring people into the community and we want them to live there. We want local people to be able to stay, but if the housing is tied to the job they cannot then move around as they would naturally within a community.