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 2643 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Was that at a time when patronage was growing substantially, or was that predicted? I think that we are now growing back very slowly from Covid—that seems to be the case from the modelling that I have seen. From discussions with bus companies, I think they are not expecting a huge surge in older people being back on the buses. What was the trend that led up to the breach of the cap in a single year, in 2018?
09:45Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
The young persons scheme has been really successful. There were a few teething problems at the beginning, but there is now substantial uptake among young people under the age of 22 who have the card.
Is there a target for how much you want the percentage of cardholders to go up in the next year? Will we reach a plateau in the numbers of people and their families who want a card, or do you think there is still a gap and that councils and schools could encourage young people to take up the card in greater numbers? Are we at the limit of uptake of the card, or do you think there is still a little way to go in getting the last folk on board?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
That all sounds substantial. I am sure that it will be a great help to the committee when those reports are published and we can look at that.
Can I take it from your answer that that will feed into ministerial objectives for Scottish Water’s investment and that the report will be timed in such a way as to inform ministerial thinking and choices?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
I will move from water to air. The committee did an inquiry on the back of ESS’s first air quality report. I note that you have now produced a subsequent air quality report, which recommends the adoption of the World Health Organization’s very stringent limits for particulates. That was not an improvement report on the Scottish Government, so I am interested in what that report’s headlines are—the top asks—and also what the conversation with the Government on air quality now looks like, given that you have, in effect, produced an advisory set of recommendations with a slightly different status to the first report on air quality.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
I was going to ask about how long the older and disabled persons scheme has been in place, how many times the cap has been breached, and what happened, but I think that Bettina Sizeland—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
This is obviously an issue of great public concern, and I note the number of submissions that ESS has received. The primary focus of those submissions has been SEPA’s discretion under the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 to regulate in that area and take enforcement action. Can you give the committee the top line from your investigations and spell out the next major steps for regulators and others in that area?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Are you talking about CSO monitoring?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
What practical changes are needed on the ground? Is it greater regulation of traffic and of wood-burning stoves, for example? Will a lot more work need to be done in terms of the Government and stakeholders coming up with an action plan to make progress towards a much more stringent WHO target, or is it pretty clear what the next steps will be?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Could the Scottish Government fill the gap unilaterally, or would it have to work within the UK framework?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Could you stay with your crystal ball for a minute, minister?