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
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Last year, the clean heat industry wrote to the First Minister to urge the Scottish Government to move forward with its heat in buildings bill as soon as possible. It said:
“To meet the challenge and maximise opportunities, industry needs certainty”
and that new standards would allow
“homeowners, landlords and supply chains”
to understand
“what they need to do and by when.”
Given that clear steer from industry, does the minister agree that calls from Opposition parties for delay and dilution go against what businesses are telling us that they need in order to deliver the heat transition, with the urgency that is required to tackle the climate emergency?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Do you see a potential conclusion to that bedding in ahead of the TCA agreement being fully revised? I am trying to work out where the issue sits within the agenda for that negotiation and whether there will be certainty as to what an appropriate model is and evidence to back that up.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
I have a couple of follow-up points. Ed Barker and Sarah Millar spoke about the need for a veterinary agreement. Are we quite far away from striking a veterinary agreement? There are already models in place—you mentioned New Zealand and Switzerland—and it is a relatively short leap to securing an agreement that could help the sector.
I should declare that I am an honorary associate member of the British Veterinary Association.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
I have other questions, but I can come back in after Alexander Stewart.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Are there fundamental policy differences in any of those spaces?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Is the point that the border target operating model needs to be bedded in and assessed before the argument might switch towards the potential need for a veterinary agreement?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
I am interested in your overall views about the direction of policy within the European Union at the moment. I am hearing that divergence causes friction for trade and that having different standards can cause issues at borders. Do you feel that the decisions on regulatory standards that are being made in Europe at the moment are moving in the right direction for your sectors, or do you feel that there is policy divergence?
I can give one example. I know that beekeepers across the UK and Europe are concerned about adulterated honey and have called for country of origin labelling for honey. The European Union has moved quite quickly on that, through the honey directive, and is also looking at other import issues connected with the breakfast directives. However, there seems to be no appetite from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to move towards introducing that sort of regulatory standard.
That may be quite a niche example, but what are your overall thoughts? I should declare an interest because I am a beekeeper, although I do not produce honey in any volume for export. The issue has been raised with me and is one example of an area where the European Union is taking a stand and moving forward with regulation.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Therefore, you are saying that we are getting divergence, but there is a lack of capacity to deal with all of those multifarious issues, of which I have raised one, that exist within the food sector.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Is that a policy divergence, or is the fact that we need different regulatory regimes just the consequence of Brexit? The registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals is an example of a duplicate regime running alongside another one. Are there any fundamental differences between the EU and the UK around how we regulate and go forward with policy, or is the issue more about the fact that we have duplicate regulatory structures and friction and, as has been said, a lack of capacity to then keep pace with all the things, from honey production to fertilisers and everything else?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 7 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
With new stations being opened at Leven and Cameron Bridge in June this year, rail campaigners across Fife are feeling inspired and hopeful. Key progress is being made in the business cases for the reopening of stations at St Andrews and Newburgh. Will the cabinet secretary congratulate the communities that are leading the way? Does she see a need to expand rail further in Fife to achieve the modal shift away from car usage that we require nationally?