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: 12 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
We are not alone; countries around the world are considering how to ensure that there is a just transition away from oil and gas and how to do that in a responsible way that meets current and future energy needs. A lot of the conversations in that space have involved the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance. I think that the previous First Minister indicated that the Scottish Government would seek to join that conversation at some point and to be part of that alliance, which includes countries such as Wales, Ireland, Denmark, France and New Zealand. Where are things at in that regard? Do you know, through your role as cabinet secretary, where those international conversations are at? Will we be looking to join BOGA at an appropriate level in the months to come?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
My final question is about other sectors that are perhaps not highlighted in the draft energy strategy as much as some people would like, such as the solar, tidal and wave energy and battery sectors. What is your sense of whether we have the right balance of targets and market signals for each of those sectors? I will not say that they are all identical to onshore wind; they are at different stages of development and closeness to market. What is your sense of the drivers and targets that are needed? Could we start with solar and then go on to the tidal, wave and battery sectors?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
On streamlining the consenting process for offshore wind, are there changes that could and should be made to make things simpler?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
—which would require CCUS.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
It would be useful if we could get specific feedback on the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance and on whether—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
I want to ask a bit more about the aspiration to halve the determination time for electricity generating stations. Is there anything more to say on that at this point, or will the detail of that—you mentioned guidance for local authorities—all be published as part of the onshore wind sector deal?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 12 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
Is there a trade-off among technologies? Is there a view in Government that, if we invest too much in the grid infrastructure that is required for solar, or even allow batteries to connect to the grid, it will hoover up the available transmission infrastructure for onshore wind and other technologies? Is there a point at which our transmission infrastructure is limited and we have to prioritise certain technologies over others?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
Is that advice fed into the common frameworks process? If particular issues come up relating to single-use plastics or anything else, would you offer advice? Have you been asked for advice?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
You work with businesses, so are there particular scales or types of businesses that are more integrated in the European market and have more experience of working within different regulatory set-ups? In your report, you mention deposit return schemes. Different deposit return schemes operate across the member states in Europe. Some companies will supply to only one scheme, but some will work across the continent and will engage with different models. I am interested in which business sectors are particularly adept at working within that larger internal market and which have concerns about divergence if they are working in one particular market but not in others.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 September 2023
Mark Ruskell
I wonder to what extent you still have an eye on the European Union. Arguably, the EU is the world’s most successful single market, which manages a degree of regulatory divergence between member states in that market. Do you still look across to Europe to see how good practice is developed and how businesses are managing regulatory divergence in their sectors? What can we learn from that?