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
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
Yesterday’s decision by the United Kingdom Government to grant a licence to the Rosebank oil and gas field is nothing short of a climate catastrophe, condemning us to a future dependent on fossil fuels while the planet around us burns. It shows utter contempt for our environment and the future generations who will live with the consequences. Will the First Minister join me in condemning this decision, and can he say whether the UK Government carried out the necessary climate compatibility assessment before the licence was granted?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
I welcome the statement, and the onshore wind sector deal in particular, which, as the minister has alluded to, is at the heart of the Bute house agreement. It looks as though, through that deal, there will be a doubling of onshore wind capacity in Scotland, which means that many of our existing wind farms will need to be repowered or extended. That could provide the opportunity to renegotiate community benefit payments, which for many existing wind farms are at quite a low level—the payments are only around £1,000 a megawatt for many wind farms in my constituency.
Are there opportunities to maximise community benefit payments through renegotiation, so that we can get transformative investment in communities—for example, in housing, as the minister mentioned to Dr Allan—which we really need from renewable energy developments across Scotland?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
Transport remains Scotland’s most polluting and highest-emitting sector. An investigation by The Scotsman revealed that more than 1,500 empty or nearly empty commercial passenger flights, which are also known as ghost flights, passed through Scottish airports last year. That must change.
Does the cabinet secretary agree with the Oxfam report’s recommendations on the use of taxation to reduce air travel demand? What is her view on implementing a higher tax for more polluting aircraft, such as private jets?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 27 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recommendations regarding taxation policy in Oxfam GB’s analysis, “Payment Overdue: Fair ways to make polluters across the UK pay for climate justice”. (S6O-02561)
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
I cannot get that image out of my mind.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
Generally, in terms of how you drive innovation and the role of skills and education within that, I am still fishing to see whether there is something that the bill could and should address.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
Thank you for that. My last question is whether you think that anything that should be in there is missing from the bill. A number of areas, including direct variable charging for householders, have been consulted on. Are you content with the bill, or could other things be brought into it?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
Given all that, and your answers to the convener, what needs to happen in order to enable a scheme to be implemented by 2025? Will you take us through the steps that must happen to ensure interoperability by the target date of 2025?
11:00Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
Is there any wriggle room that would allow for a phased launch? Different regulations could be considered in different parts of the UK. Is that a possibility, or are we now looking at complete alignment?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
I come back to the issue of unsold consumer goods and goods that might be problematic. In its submission, the SRC talked about the difficulty of recycling mouldy clothes. That feels like a pretty niche issue, but are there other defined categories of consumer goods that can quite easily be described as problematic, so that we can include those in any later guidance?