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: 14 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
I will ask Colin Pritchard about hydrogen. My understanding is that it will be a precious energy commodity that we will need to decarbonise the hard-to-abate sectors, such as steel. Is there a need to deploy a hydrogen hierarchy, whereby we prioritise the use of hydrogen for the hard-to-abate sectors and perhaps deprioritise the decarbonisation of the way that we heat our homes, or do we just need more of everything?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
I know that time is short, convener, so I will hand back to you.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
It is clear that Scotland’s DRS will be a game changer and, while I share the minister’s frustration about the pandemic and Brexit delays, I welcome the fact that the scope of the scheme remains one of the most ambitious in the world, despite industry pressure to dilute it. That means that far more bottles will be recycled, including glass and containers bought online. I understand that the Westminster Government is developing a scheme for England, but it is some years behind Scotland. Will that scheme follow Scotland’s lead in its scope?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
Does that ethos of collaboration extend to Parliaments and civic society? Is that also codified in the concordats? Is there an expectation that citizens will be involved in discussions around trade agreements or any other policies that are pursued by regions or states?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
Can I bring in Dr Zuleeg, please?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
Thank you—that was very useful. Does that focus carry through to the concordats that are established between those sub-state regions and countries and the EU? What are the most successful features of those concordats? Perhaps we could go back to Mr Salamone.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
Are there any examples of third countries or sub-states that have been particularly successful in aligning their strategic priorities with the institutional cycle?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
Thank you for sharing that news with us. Obviously, it is in its very early days. As institutions, civil society organisations or European citizens that scrutinise the process, how can we engage with it practically? Will there be full access to papers that are being brought up to the PPA for scrutiny? Will there be full disclosure and full transparency, and what might that look like? What mechanisms are you used to implementing in your foreign affairs committee? What kind of culture of openness and transparency might we expect for the PPA? What might that look like when it comes to sharing the information that is presented to the elected representatives on both sides but that perhaps is not available to citizens or those who scrutinise the process from afar, as we in Holyrood do?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
Thank you.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 9 December 2021
Mark Ruskell
Good morning. Where are we at the moment in the EU institutional cycle? How are third countries, but also countries that are sub-states that are part of third countries, engaging with that institutional cycle process at the moment? What are the strategic areas? How are such countries engaging with those? I would like to start with Mr Salamone.