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 2588 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
Ewan, do you have any brief points to add?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
Thank you. Back to you, convener.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
I want to ask Ewan Wallace about the consistency of the roll-out of charging infrastructure around the country. In my experience, it is excellent in areas such as Stirling and Dundee but very poor in Edinburgh, and that can build in range anxiety. What progress can be made in having consistent EV infrastructure roll-out? At the moment, we still seem to be in a phase in which the process is being led by local authorities that have a particular interest in the issue, that have sought pathfinder funding and that are forging ahead.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2022
Mark Ruskell
I thank all the panellists for those useful answers.
I will move on. How could and should councils be using the powers to support bus use in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, which was passed in the previous session of Parliament? What is the next tranche of activity that councils should be engaged in?
I ask Paul White to answer first, after which I will go to Ewan Wallace.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Mark Ruskell
Earlier, in your answer to Liam Kerr’s question about companies’ investment in the transition, you talked about getting away from expensive gas, which is driving the energy price. However, according to the International Energy Agency, in 2020, oil and gas companies invested only around 1 per cent of their capital expenditure in clean energy. Do you think that that is a fast enough transition? When do you think that the industry can get up to 70 per cent?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Mark Ruskell
I have another question.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Mark Ruskell
Alastair, could you comment on the practicalities of the next few months?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Mark Ruskell
That message is heard. Chris Birt, do you want to add anything?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Mark Ruskell
What percentage of capital expenditure is that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 April 2022
Mark Ruskell
There has been a lot of debate about the need to democratise energy, and there has been much debate in the Parliament about the idea of a national energy company. Minister, do you see the potential for local energy companies to be developed as a result of the work on the strategy? I think that you have already mentioned that there are examples of that being done. Do you see that as something that could accelerate as local authorities work through what is appropriate for their own areas?