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 1225 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Kevin Stewart
What about you, Mr Boland?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Kevin Stewart
A number of you have talked about port infrastructure. That is extremely important as we move forward, but some of the proposed changes to ports are quite controversial. Aberdeen south harbour did not get by without a wee bit of controversy, but now the vast majority of people would agree that it was the right thing to do, not only for Aberdeen but for the whole of the north-east, as we move forward. We can already see business transferring to Aberdeen that would not have gone there before. How do we get around such projects, which are often controversial? How do we explain to communities the necessity for such changes in order for us to get to a stage at which we can not only survive but thrive? I do not know who wants to answer that. Business has a big part to play in communication with communities.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Kevin Stewart
Maybe the folk who will be meeting on 18 January will have taken cognisance of what has been said today.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Kevin Stewart
I turn to Suzanne Sosna to ask about how flexible companies are in terms of change. You talked about the fear of a year going by without contracts, but are there folk who are stuck and who are not looking at the future in the way that they should by diversifying? What are you and other agencies doing to get them to see the light on diversification?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Kevin Stewart
I wouldnae be buying the pizza. [Laughter.]
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Kevin Stewart
I get all that, but who needs their heads knocked together to get this show on the road?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Kevin Stewart
I want to move on, convener. We have heard about the perceived differences in how jobs will operate in this new future. Professor de Leeuw talked about there being a much more transient workforce. Would it be fair to say that there is already a pretty transient workforce in the north-east? Aberdeen has operated as a global city. Folk have come and folk have gone. Aberdonians have moved elsewhere and come back. Is that transience maybe less of a challenge for Aberdeen and the north-east of Scotland than it would be elsewhere?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Kevin Stewart
Sure. You talked about flexibility, which is another key aspect of the shift that we need to make. Last Friday, I attended a Shell event on energy that was specifically for girls, where 18 schools from across the north-east were represented. From speaking to some of the young women there, it is clear that they recognise now that, in relation to the fields that they want to enter, how they work will have to be much more flexible in the future. One lass I spoke with wants to be a mechanical engineer. She recognises that, although she will want to remain a mechanical engineer, there will have to be flexibility in her working life.
It seems, though, that we have some impediments at this time in terms of those flexibilities, including getting the likes of the skills passport. In your opinion, the future workforce recognises that there needs to be flexibility. Is it the case that some of the trade bodies are not accepting that there needs to be that flexibility? If they do not, they could cause a real problem in terms of us reaching our ambitions.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Kevin Stewart
I shall. Thank you, convener.
My very brief supplementary is for Mr Boland, who said that the skills passport is in a wee bit of a difficult phase. As you know, Skills Development Scotland will be on the panel after you. What do you think are the difficulties, and how can they be overcome quickly?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 15 November 2023
Kevin Stewart
By the sounds of it, there have maybe been too many meetings and not enough action.