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: 26 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
However, with regard to management of that market, you do not have any communities that are directly involved in the work of Gresham House. They might benefit from some of the investments that you manage in the long term, but there are not actually any communities, tenants or crofters involved in Gresham House itself.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
I want to ask about how the interim principles for responsible investment are working. Are they being followed? Do they need to change over time so that we get an higher-integrity market? Should they be codified in legislation? I suppose that the clue is in the title, in that they are “interim principles” for responsible investment, so we are on a journey. However, you emphasised the need for certainty. Where do you see the principles going? Are they working right now to deliver a high-integrity market? Do they need to change and, if so, how?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
So, you do not have a view on whether the current principles are the right ones, but you want to ensure that, whatever principles we use, they give certainty to allow greater investment, going forward?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
I think that we will come back to those points around wider social, economic and community benefit, but in relation to climate, do you see the projects that were mentioned at the end of the earlier session delivering long-term reductions in carbon emissions, locking up carbon emissions and mitigating climate change?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
That is clear. Naomi Beingessner, do you want to come in?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
It is great if you own land now, but maybe in five years it will be beyond what communities can afford.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Okay. I asked the first panel about the interim principles for responsible investment in natural capital. What are your thoughts on that as a framework? You will be aware that we talked in the earlier session about whether that could or should be codified in legislation in some way. It would be useful to have your reflections on that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Who would regulate that? Would it be NatureScot?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
So, that is one to watch.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 26 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Could that be done through the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill?