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 740 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Murdo Fraser
I will try to be as brief as possible, convener.
Minister, you will be aware that I have carried out a consultation on fly-tipping, as part of work on a member’s bill, which is progressing very well. There are four elements to that. I am pleased to see that section 10 of the bill picks up the issue of the householder’s responsibility. We will discuss the level of fines later, so I will not ask about that, which helpfully leaves me with two issues and two questions.
My first question is very straightforward and is about data collection. The picture is quite confused at the moment because a number of bodies are involved in data collection, including local authorities, Zero Waste Scotland and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. Your fly-tipping strategy recognises the need to improve the consistency and quality of data collection. Would it be helpful to amend the bill at stage 2 to put a specific duty on ministers to collect and publish data, so that we have a central point, rather than having that responsibility spread across different organisations?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 5 December 2023
Murdo Fraser
Thank you, convener.
I have lodged a motion to annul, but that was largely a device to ensure that the convener would allow me time to ask questions, which I hope has had an appropriate impact.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
I am genuinely confused by this. I did a little simple research and found that, for example, Margaret Thatcher’s Government condemned apartheid on a number of occasions. Famously, Margaret Thatcher, when she met Archbishop Desmond Tutu, condemned apartheid. She condemned apartheid in 1984 during a visit to the United Kingdom by P W Botha, the South African leader. The UK Government was also involved in sanctioning South Africa, so I am not entirely sure what that paragraph refers to.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
Specifically, how do the constraints around financial transactions limit what you are able to support?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
Thanks very much. I am sure that we can return to that issue, convener.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
No. So, this is all about Israel, is it not? That is exactly what the whole debate and the legislation are about: they are about Israel, which, for some reason, is being singled out by campaigners when all those other repressive regimes are being ignored. Over the past few weeks, particularly since 7 October, we have seen a dramatic rise in antisemitic activity. I have certainly spoken to members of the Jewish community in Glasgow who say that they have never experienced such a hostile environment as the one that they are experiencing today. They feel unsafe in Scotland. You will have read the submission, I am sure, from the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, which shows overwhelming support for the bill and which opposes the action that the Scottish Government is taking. Are you not concerned that, in opposing the bill, the perception will be that you are giving succour to antisemitic sentiments when, you should instead be giving reassurance to the Scottish Jewish community, given that it feels more threatened than it has done at any point in the past 40 years?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
Good morning, minister and colleagues. I have a number of short questions, and I hope that we will get short answers.
First, minister, would you accept that international affairs and matters of international trade are reserved to the UK Parliament?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
Thank you. In your memorandum, at paragraph 20, you refer to the UK Government: which UK Government are you referring to?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
Okay. Thanks. The just transition fund that SNIB handles is predominantly, as I understand it, in financial transactions. I am interested to understand how limiting that is for the support that you are able to offer to projects. For example, in evidence, Moray Council told us:
“there will be less appetite for financial transactions though the Scottish National Investment Bank, the current scheme simply mirrors funding that was already available for such purposes, it also limits public sector organisations involvement in the interventions as there are other sources of funding for such works but loans are not attractive compared to capital grants.”
That reflects some of the evidence that we heard earlier. What are the constraints around financial transactions funding, and how do those impact on the sort of projects that you can support?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
I can perhaps understand why the Scottish Government would have taken that view before 7 October, but we are in a very different situation now.
The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities says in its submission:
“we…urge the Scottish Parliament to take note of the vulnerability and anxiety of many Jewish people in Scotland as demonstrated by the large majority view among the Scottish Jewish community in support of the Westminster Bill, and so reject the Scottish Government Legislative Consent Memorandum”.
That was written before 7 October. I imagine that, if we were to ask the council today, we would get a much, much stronger response. Do you not think that, given what has happened, you are on the wrong side of the argument?