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 2013 contributions
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Stuart McMillan
Is the committee content with the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Stuart McMillan
With that, I will move the committee into private.
11:02 Meeting continued in private until 11:13.Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Stuart McMillan
Good morning, and welcome to the ninth meeting in 2024 of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. We have received apologies from Oliver Mundell MSP, and Jeremy Balfour is in another committee to speak to amendments to a bill. I remind everyone to switch off, or put to silent, mobile phones and other electronic devices.
The first item of business is to decide whether to take items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Is the committee content to take those items in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Stuart McMillan
Under agenda item 2, we are considering one instrument, on which no points have been raised.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Stuart McMillan
Is the committee content with the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Stuart McMillan
At its introduction, the bill included boat moorings and berthings as types of accommodation that are to be covered by a visitor levy. That led to concern in the recreational boating community and a view that the visitor levy should not apply to people using berthings, as a berthing is primarily a safe haven for a vessel, which is a very different scenario from staying in a room or in a hotel. A number of folk said to me that marinas, berthings and moorings are really just car parks for vessels.
Many recreational boaters use their boat to travel to a mooring, then leave their boat and perhaps stay in a local bed and breakfast for the night. Applying a visitor levy to that berth does not seem to be the right approach. There are also many difficulties with collecting and remitting the levy, given that many moorings are run by small voluntary community groups and sometimes no formal record is made of who has used the berth.
I welcome the committee’s recommendation in the stage 1 report that boat moorings and berthings should not be covered by a visitor levy. In my role as the chair of the cross-party group on recreational boating and marine tourism, I arranged for the minister to meet members of the boating community here in the Parliament and in my constituency, to hear their concerns. I know that he has listened carefully to their perspective and is sympathetic to the purpose behind amendment 18, in my name. Therefore, I hope that the Government is able to support it.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 12 March 2024
Stuart McMillan
What you have just said is extremely helpful, minister. You are aware of my interest in a cruise ship levy. I know that it is early in the process, but are you considering primary legislation or delegated powers to introduce any such change in the future?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 6 March 2024
Stuart McMillan
First, convener, I apologise to you and to the committee for my tardiness earlier; it was my fault.
I have a quick question on the back of Bill Kidd’s questions that relates to Ruth Maguire’s question about socioeconomic characteristics. Notwithstanding the socioeconomic point or the issue of availability of staff in schools, in relation to the cost, have you found that there has been an improvement in outcomes in new schools or schools that have been revamped in recent years? Have you found that there are better outcomes in urban settings compared with rural settings?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 6 March 2024
Stuart McMillan
Thank you. In a wide variety of policy areas, we regularly hear in the Parliament about the difference between urban and rural processes and outcomes, so I was keen to see whether there is anything to add in that regard.
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Stuart McMillan
Is the committee content with the instrument?
Members indicated agreement.