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: 7 January 2025
Mark Ruskell
If they were in the ETS, there would be MRV—monitoring, reporting and verification of emissions. Should you be doing that anyway, independently, then we could avoid discussion in the press about whether there are higher carbon emissions? Should emissions be independently monitored and verified, as would be the case if the ships were over 5,000 tonnes?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 January 2025
Mark Ruskell
Is that done independently and is it independently verified?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 January 2025
Mark Ruskell
Right.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 January 2025
Mark Ruskell
Indeed. It is highly unlikely.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 January 2025
Mark Ruskell
Do you anticipate our legislation needing any changes in the short-to-medium term to make sure that there is not a situation where there is a more attractive investment proposition in England because of new powers of the Crown Estate? Crown Estate Scotland would then be playing catch-up due to the borrowing powers limitations that currently exist. I am just trying to understand whether there are risks there, and, if there are, how quickly those could be mitigated.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 January 2025
Mark Ruskell
You would prefer a level playing field.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 January 2025
Mark Ruskell
I have a follow-up question. I think that you have allowed a 3 per cent contingency for the four large vessels that are currently being constructed in Turkey. It was good that you put on the record some of the pressures and strains that exist at the moment. Is that 3 per cent figure adequate, or do you expect that it might need to go up? Will you need to use it?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 January 2025
Mark Ruskell
I will briefly go back to the question about liquefied natural gas propulsion. There has been a lot of discussion in the press about whether the carbon emissions are higher or lower, and there was a discussion earlier about the weight of the vessel and everything else. I take it that neither the Glen Sannox nor the Glen Rosa will be part of the UK emissions trading scheme, because of their weight. Is that right?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 January 2025
Mark Ruskell
That would avoid all the conjecture about whether carbon emissions are higher or lower.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 7 January 2025
Mark Ruskell
Surely that is the point of the emissions trading scheme—you have a verifiable and monitored system in which there is agreement on what the emissions are, and you take into account not just what you are burning on the ship but where it comes from. If it comes from Saudi or wherever, you might have a higher carbon footprint.