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 1210 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 17 January 2024
Kevin Stewart
I can give you jurisdictions such as Germany, for example, where they are injecting hydrogen into the natural gas supply. There are many examples out there, minister, as I say, and I am sure that we could give you more.
You said in one of your answers that the UK imports 81 per cent of its jet fuel, which, as my colleague Gordon MacDonald says, does not seem to ensure energy security. There has been a lot of talk about sustainable aviation fuel. How quickly can the UK Government move forward on the regulatory regime for SAF? Are there opportunities for Grangemouth or elsewhere in the production of SAF, once we get those regulatory regimes right?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 17 January 2024
Kevin Stewart
Okay. I want to follow up on the questions about hydrogen that Colin Beattie has just asked. One of the difficulties in moving forward with hydrogen, whether at Grangemouth or elsewhere, is the snail’s pace of the UK Government in setting out the regulatory regime for the production, transportation and even use of hydrogen and injecting it into the natural gas supply. When will the UK Government be in a position to have those regimes in place so that we can get on with it like some of our competitors?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 17 January 2024
Kevin Stewart
Good morning, minister. Would the UK Government be so hands-off if it were the Fawley refinery in Hampshire that was earmarked for closure and job losses?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 17 January 2024
Kevin Stewart
We can perhaps send you some of that detail, Mr Stuart. Again, you said that—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Kevin Stewart
I hope that you will.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Kevin Stewart
I hope that you will continue to make that point, minister. As a north-east representative, I will certainly continue to do so.
You talked about capital moneys bringing in further financing resource from the private sector.I know that it is early days, but are we seeing changes in the spend of other public sector bodies in order to get the very best out of the just transition fund, or do you think that there is more work to do in that regard with councils, health boards and so on?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Kevin Stewart
Good morning, minister. We spent a fair amount of time with community organisations in Aberdeen. Maggie Chapman touched on the trust aspect. It was apparent that some folk felt that there was a lack of transparency around where moneys were going. You highlighted the participatory budgeting scenario. A lot of the folks whom we talked to had been involved in and were very positive about that and, of course, about their own projects. However, they did not have a clear understanding of some of the other resources that have been allocated, particularly to business. They mentioned one particular business that had received substantial funding, and they were unhappy about that. However, when I explained what that money was for, the attitude changed completely and utterly, because they understood why that was. Are we doing enough to be absolutely open and transparent in communicating the reasons why we allocate certain sums of money?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Kevin Stewart
Minister, you talked about the twice-yearly reporting. I wonder whether it would be beneficial if, setting aside commercial sensitivity, we could let folk, communities and the people of the north-east and Moray know what allocations are being used for. If we let people know, and if we are as open and transparent as possible, they will come along with us. There was a huge amount of positivity about the community aspect and less positivity about the business grants that have been made, but when the reasoning around why certain things happened was explained, the positivity grew. Can we get the comms right as we move forward? That is my plea.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 10 January 2024
Kevin Stewart
You said earlier that it has to be a bottom-up process and that we must listen to people. That is certainly how I think that it should happen. We are getting there. In the main, people feel involved. However, in the discussion around the bottom-up aspect, there are frustrations around the resource that is available. I recognise that the Scottish Government has come up with a just transition fund, for which we are grateful. A lot of that funding, though, is capital funding. Community organisations, in particular, feel that there needs to be much more access to revenue resource funding.
10:00Minister, is there a way that there could be co-operation between all the public services to match up some of the resource funding that is required to allow certain projects to get off the ground? Also, I am interested to hear any comments that you have around communication with the United Kingdom Government to try to get it to match the just transition funding that the Scottish Government has put into the north-east and Moray.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Kevin Stewart
Good morning. I want to go back to some of the comments that have already been made about the Scottish cluster and the Acorn project. To quote you, Mr Pritchard—if I misquote you, you can tell me—you have said that your plans remain unchanged around the Scottish cluster and the Acorn project and that you are continuing with them. However, you are looking at a substantial change to the business. Could you explain why you feel that your commitment and your planned works for the Scottish cluster and the Acorn project remain unchanged?
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