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 728 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 21 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
Thank you. I have a follow-up question for you, David. You talked about problems with enforcement, which I appreciate, and about resourcing. If we were to increase the level of penalties, would it be helpful if there were some mechanism whereby you could ring fence that money, so that it went back into better enforcement, for example, to be more resource for your team?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
I would like to change direction a little bit and ask about the just transition fund. We took some evidence last week from community groups that have benefited from the fund. We also heard different views on the way the fund was being administered by the Scottish National Investment Bank.
I would like to start by asking you whether you have any particular view on the just transition fund generally. Do you think that it is appropriate that it is being handled by the Scottish National Investment Bank, as opposed to another body? Is there enough transparency around the fund and how it is being administered?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
Thank you. That was a very helpful and comprehensive answer.
On innovation and new technologies being developed, is there enough awareness in companies in the sector about the just transition fund? How easy is it to access that fund?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
Yes.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
Thank you.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
So the fund is not helpful to you in your skills work.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
Thank you. That is very helpful. Does anybody want to add anything?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
I appreciate that time is short, so I will just ask one question. It is about the just transition fund, which we have not really touched on yet. To what extent is the fund supporting innovation and the development of new technologies? Do you have a view on the way that the fund operates, with the Scottish National Investment Bank as, in effect, the gatekeeper for the fund?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
Okay. Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Murdo Fraser
On your point about people struggling to pay the fines, when we did some research, the committee found that, increasingly, organised crime is involved in collecting industrial waste in particular and dumping it. As you fairly said earlier, it is a crime that is very hard to detect, and the chances of being caught are, therefore, very low. If you are caught, the penalties are so low that they are not a risk. The idea of increasing the fines is more to catch those people rather than the householder who gets rid of a mattress in the wrong place.