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: 31 October 2023
Mark Ruskell
My last question is on the legislative framework. Is there a need for any change in the legislation to enable you to adapt to the impacts of climate change?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Mark Ruskell
On what you said about targeting the most important areas for monitoring, I presume that those are designated bathing areas. I accept that, and acknowledge that there is investment going into that, but many people now use bodies of fresh water—rivers and lochs—for wild swimming, so they need information about whether those bathing places are safe to go into.
I have constituents who went for a wild swim in the River Tay, and everybody in that party—I think there were around 10 people—became ill a couple of days afterwards. It is very hard for them to pinpoint exactly what the cause was, but it was probably related to bacterial infection that they believe came from a combined sewer overflow incident in Stanley, in Perthshire. Their call to me and others has been for us to give them the information about that.
We realise that investment in the assets is needed to ensure that we do not get pollution but, at the very least, people need to know whether there has been an incident and whether they are putting their lives at risk by going into the water. That means that the issue is bigger than just our bathing waters, because there are lots of lochs and rivers where people go for a dip.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Mark Ruskell
Is 1,000 monitors enough?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Mark Ruskell
That is useful to know.
You mentioned the restrictions for the bank on funding public bodies. Do you see that situation changing over time? I see it as an area of frustration. I was talking just yesterday to Fife College, which is going through a massive redevelopment of its campus, and there is a frustration that it is not able to invest in electric vehicle charging facilities or renewable energy in the way that it might do if it were set up as a different body.
There seems to be a lot of frustration in the public sector that there are investment opportunities right now, as infrastructure that is needed to tackle the climate emergency is being built, but the finance is not always there.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Mark Ruskell
Is there something in particular about the way in which the ScotWind process has evolved that has helped in that regard? For example, the supply chain statements have been up front in the bids for ScotWind leases. Has that revealed or provided a bit more certainty about where the opportunities are? Has it helped to stimulate things?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Mark Ruskell
It is good to get a flavour of those challenges. Is your blue-green infrastructure for managing surface water or pluvial and fluvial flooding events? Will your blue-green infrastructure be able to manage events such as storm Babet? Will you need to change your thinking on that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Mark Ruskell
Okay. I would like to move on, convener.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Mark Ruskell
I am sorry to interrupt. It is good to get the detail on that, but I am thinking about what Alex Plant said about the other extreme, which is drought situations. It is clear that you are describing resilience and how plant is operating. What about drought and the bigger challenges around reservoir water levels and everything else?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Mark Ruskell
Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 31 October 2023
Mark Ruskell
I am interested to understand how you engage with stakeholders. There are obviously customer forums, and there is the role of the economic regulator, but I am interested in what your relationship is with environmental organisations and campaigners, in particular.
We heard earlier that Surfers Against Sewage has been very critical in recent media coverage. Do you engage with those organisations? Do you meet with the likes of Feargal Sharkey and others who are campaigning in that area? Do you take on board their concerns?