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 1342 contributions
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
I am sorry to interrupt, but one reason why I asked the question is that this is not just about Scotland. It is also about the set-up of the refineries in the rest of the UK and even in the Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp triangle that Petroineos talked about. What is the situation in the north-west of Europe at the moment? How old are the refineries and what are their capabilities?
We recognise that oil and gas will still have some part to play in the future—a significant part, in some instances—and it would be much better to deal with that here than to import from some of the more modern refineries in the middle east and China that have been mentioned, not only from the carbon footprint point of view, but also from the energy security point of view. We have to look at the issue holistically. I will ask the UK Government those questions when it comes to the committee.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Kevin Stewart
There was no demand in your original business plan to ensure that you were supplying the refinery.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Kevin Stewart
Just mix it all up, please.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Kevin Stewart
It is the importation aspect that gets me. We are talking a lot about energy security. Let us look at this in layman’s terms. We have the North Sea basin producing crude. You are refining that crude into various products.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Kevin Stewart
That is my point. Do we need to import as much crude, and cannot we utilise the North Sea basin and what it is producing to a greater degree? I recognise that there are different types of crude and all the rest of it—
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?
10:00Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Kevin Stewart
Okay.
I want to move to a few other issues to do with the biorefinery. I would also like to hear a little bit more about your plans for hydrogen, which you have already mentioned. Beyond that, where are you with regard to sustainable aviation fuel and its production, which will be extremely important? What will be the impact of the proposed closure of the refinery—you are unable to tell us when that will be at this moment—on those ambitions? Beyond that, what effect does the refinery plans have on the confidence of future investors in relation to what you are looking to scope for the future?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Kevin Stewart
I will move on a bit, because there has been talk of energy security. Members have asked questions about the Forties pipeline and what comes in at Kinneil. You have discussed in great depth current exports to ARA, and you have talked about a crude mix from international markets.
With regard to energy security and the carbon footprint, is not there an argument that more crude oil should come in through the Forties pipeline to Grangemouth? You have talked about Finnart and about the pipeline being used for diesel. I have not heard anything about petrol or kerosene and how they would come into the import plant. From an energy security perspective, would not it be better to utilise the Forties pipeline to Grangemouth more, rather than relying on international shipping coming in to Finnart? Do you have a general comment on that? I might then have some specifics to address.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 13 December 2023
Kevin Stewart
We also discussed hydrogen production and the biorefinery project earlier this morning, and the previous panel was keen to talk about importing sustainable aviation fuel. Have you had any discussions with the UK Government and other partners about manufacturing sustainable aviation fuel? As an Orcadian, you will realise the essential role that aviation will continue to play in Scotland as we move forward. What can be done to try to ensure that Scotland plays a part in manufacturing SAF? Can that be done at Grangemouth as part of the just transition?