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 2616 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
If there is anything that you can forward to the committee on that matter, too, that would be very useful.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
Yes—those are long-standing issues in relation to conservation.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
I move on to questions around supply chains and consumption. It is good to see that the framework recognises that as an issue. Every time I buy clothing or food that has been imported, or even drive an electric car, the impact of that wider supply chain on the planet and biodiversity is always at the forefront of my mind. Do we have enough clarity at the moment about the impact of supply chains and consumption in Scotland? Is there transparency in corporate or Government reporting in that area?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
Okay; feel free to come in on that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
Thanks for that point.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
Thank you for that reminder, convener.
We have spoken quite a bit about the 30 by 30 target, which is, I suppose, the headline of the framework. That makes me think about the other 70 per cent, though. Deborah Long has spoken about agricultural subsidy reform.
In relation to marine space, is it enough for Governments to designate marine protected areas, put in place management measures and police them, or should we be looking beyond that to wider ecosystem management? For example, should we consider the impact of dredging and trawling on inshore areas? Is there a danger that the 30 by 30 target will, dare I say, focus all the attention on the parks, if you like, and that we will lose the ecological coherence that we need across the management of wider seas?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
Do any of the other witnesses want to add to that before we move on?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
I will pick up on marine, because I think that Deborah Long wanted to talk about that. First, however, I ask Dr Mitchell whether she has anything to add.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
Is that best done through a sector-by-sector approach? If we are looking at consumption targets, for example, are there very obvious sectors where the impact on climate and biodiversity is acute and where we need to focus? Do we perhaps have levers in some areas but not in others?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2023
Mark Ruskell
My final question, which is broadly for Colin Galbraith, is about the role of the JNCC in providing UK-wide governance in relation to the international agreements that we are signed up to.
Separately, I also want to ask about the JNCC’s role in co-operation. The committee is considering a very live example of that with the Energy Bill and the establishment of offshore wind mitigation, in relation to which there are a lot of complexities around devolved and reserved boundaries. Without opening up a huge can of worms, would you briefly address those two points?