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: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
What practical changes are needed on the ground? Is it greater regulation of traffic and of wood-burning stoves, for example? Will a lot more work need to be done in terms of the Government and stakeholders coming up with an action plan to make progress towards a much more stringent WHO target, or is it pretty clear what the next steps will be?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Could the Scottish Government fill the gap unilaterally, or would it have to work within the UK framework?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Could you stay with your crystal ball for a minute, minister?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Mark Ruskell
Scotland is trailblazing here. There are not, to my knowledge, any other countries in Europe that offer a free travel for young persons scheme.
I want to ask about a potential extension to the scheme to people who are in the asylum system. We have heard about the benefits for young people. Young people who are asylum seekers are currently using the young persons scheme and people who are eligible are using the older and disabled persons scheme. However, the Government made a commitment to extend concessionary travel to everybody who is languishing in the asylum system in Scotland. It might be a bit early to say, but would those people fall under an extension of one of the concessionary schemes or would it be a bespoke card or something separate to the current concessionary travel legislation that would enable them to get on the bus? I think that the commitment was that every asylum seeker, regardless of age or disability, would be able to access free travel because of the crushing circumstances in which they find themselves.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mark Ruskell
Creative Stirling has shown itself to be a highly innovative organisation. It has met the needs of communities, but it does not benefit from siloed funding. I wish to ask the cabinet secretary about the conversation with Creative Scotland, which I know he has engaged with, in particular about opportunities for multiyear funding and about innovation. Organisations such as Creative Stirling will go to the wall unless they get support, survive this period of vulnerability and continue to do what they do best as they seek long-term funding.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mark Ruskell
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the Scottish Prison Service’s work to address reported noise disturbance at HMP Stirling. (S6O-03131)
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 28 February 2024
Mark Ruskell
I thank the cabinet secretary for that update. As I am sure that she is aware, the local community neighbouring HMP Stirling has been deeply affected by the disturbances over the past eight months. It has been a nightmare, particularly for families with children, with reported impacts on their mental health.
Will the cabinet secretary report on the progress that has been made towards implementing the SPS action plan to deal with the problems? Will she agree to meet the SPS, MSPs, councillors and local residents to assure them that the detail of the action plan is being implemented, so that people can see an end point to the misery that they have been facing over the past eight months?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Mark Ruskell
I am trying to get my head around how this will incentivise industry to electrify—hopefully—and move away from oil-powered systems. Does the exemption act as an incentive or is it more about reducing the costs to industries that already have high electricity costs rather than about fuel switching or decarbonisation plans and that kind of thing?
09:30Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Mark Ruskell
Yes, I get that. I am trying to work out how the exemption helps industry to make the investments that it needs to make to reduce energy costs or to switch to low carbon sources. The original UK policy was called the “British industry supercharger”. How does all this help to supercharge industry in the transition to reduce energy costs and move into a low carbon space? At the moment it seems to be saying, “This is all quite expensive. Let us not put more costs on,” but what is the solution to that? Surely, it is reducing energy and investing in the future.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 27 February 2024
Mark Ruskell
How much of the contingency budget has been used? If we put the LNG issue to one side, will that budget be sufficient? Is there any danger that it will not be enough?