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: 19 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
So, in theory, clause 50 would grant those powers.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
I go back to my original question. Is there another option that the Government could take to help, such as subsidising some other form of price support or fare capping for the railways, or was removing peak-time fares the obvious thing to do?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
I think that that broadly covers matters. Have you had any feedback from passengers who use driver-only operated routes? Have there been particular concerns about antisocial behaviour or feelings of insecurity if no additional staff are on trains to support people?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
It is about the decarbonisation programme and the objective to decarbonise Scotland’s railways by 2035. Is that on track, given current levels of investment?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Okay.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
A lot of studies have been done through the local rail development fund on the potential for other new stations that could be delivered at a relatively low cost on the existing network. Do you see the business cases building for those as we move forward? Are we any closer to getting decisions despite the Government’s fiscal constraints?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Good morning, and thanks for that explanation.
I want to ask about clause 50. My understanding is that there might be certain traffic regulations that the UK Secretary of State for Transport could choose to amend. Could you go into a bit more detail about what the scope of that power might be and what your concerns are, specifically around the nature of those regulations and the changes that may or may not happen in Scotland as a result?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
It was my question, indeed—you have done well to dine out on it.
The position is clear from my point of view. It is a complex area, and it is a new and emerging technology, but it would be odd to have two sets of rules, effectively: a set of rules for automated vehicles and a set of liabilities and regulations relating to that; and a completely different set of rules for everybody else. It feels like there is the potential for mismatch. I hope that that would never happen, but clause 50 raises the spectre that that might happen, which would be problematic. If that summarises your concerns, along with the real examples that you have just given us, I can understand where the Scottish Government is coming from.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Further to that, I was thinking about speed limits. Could there be two tiers on speed limits for automated vehicles and conventional vehicles? In the devolved context in Wales, there is a national speed limit of 20mph in built-up areas. Could automated vehicles be run at different speeds under a different set of rules of the road under clause 50?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Okay, I will let that sink in a bit.
I have a final question about the broader policy context. I will play devil’s advocate and say that I see automated vehicles as a bit of a costly distraction. Where do they sit within the Scottish Government’s transport policy? We have major issues with infrastructure investment for conventional bus travel and I know that the Government is working hard to support the bus sector in that. Is bus operators investing in automated bus technology a realistic tangible option right now? Will the cost of redesigning streets and systems to accommodate such vehicles not be astronomical? I am interested in where we are right now and where we think this might be going in the future.