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: 18 June 2024
Mark Ruskell
Yes. I want to ask about the witnesses’ views on resumption—in other words, a landlord’s ability to take back land under a tenancy agreement before the lease is concluded. I think that Ms Watt and Mr Dunlop both have concerns about the provisions in the bill.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Mark Ruskell
You have already mentioned last week’s evidence from the Scottish Land Commission, which is concerned about the imbalance between compensation that is available on resumption and those who are offered an incontestable notice to quit. Ms Watt, do you want to comment on that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Mark Ruskell
Does that reflect patterns in changing land use and diversification? Another example that comes to mind relates to a solar farm. There might still be an element of agricultural operation, but it might be quite different, and there would be the lease for the generation.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Mark Ruskell
Possibly, and then I will move to the next question. Mr Dunlop, does your last point not make the case for a model environmental lease? You said that it is very difficult to crowbar environmental improvements into standard agricultural leases.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Mark Ruskell
Do Ms Watt or Mr Colquhoun have anything to add?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2024
Mark Ruskell
The Government’s commitment to a solar target is welcome, but does the minister agree that it would be a missed opportunity if that target was met only through solar farms? Household solar battery and storage systems cut electricity bills and transport costs and enable householders to secure preferential electricity tariffs. Does the minister recognise that there are wider benefits and will she commit to ensuring that loan funding is there for both solar PV and batteries, even if it remains conditional on also decarbonising heating systems?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 13 June 2024
Mark Ruskell
The picture across Wales is now absolutely clear: its 20mph national roll-out has reduced casualties by a third. The Tories seem to care very little about road safety, proposing a bill that would roll back on 20mph limits. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that there is no such rollback in Scotland, that funding will be there for councils to implement their plans next year and that, as part of that, a national communications plan will also be rolled out, learning from the Welsh experience of a 20mph national roll-out?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 11 June 2024
Mark Ruskell
I would like to explore the difference between the transfer test in the bill, which applies to the seller prior to sale, and what you wanted to see in the bill, which was a public interest test that is applied as the land is being sold and which puts conditions on the future ownership. Will you comment on that, please?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 11 June 2024
Mark Ruskell
Okay. You have covered this in relation to land management plans, but should the transfer test also apply to aggregate landholdings that are over 1,000 hectares?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 11 June 2024
Mark Ruskell
Regarding the transfer test applying to large landholdings, the bill refers to holdings that are over 1,000 hectares. Do you see an argument for reducing that? If so, why?