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 łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of łÉČËżěĘÖ 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 1758 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Douglas Lumsden
Yes—I will do exactly the same. I remind members that my entry in the register of members’ interests shows that I was a councillor at the beginning of the current parliamentary session.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Douglas Lumsden
Will the minister take an intervention?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Douglas Lumsden
If we were in a good place where both Governments were working together, I would agree that it was not required. However, from what we have learned over the past couple of years, we know that it is required, because things have not been working according to the frameworks. I imagine that both Governments would blame each other, and we would not find ourselves in a good position.
It would be good if the amendment was not required but, from our experience over the past couple of years, I think that it is required. I will leave it there.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Douglas Lumsden
I will join in briefly, convener. I have heard, and hear in the chamber a lot, that there is a climate emergency. If we are serious about that, we have to be serious about setting some timelines. The amendments in the name of Graham Simpson are trying to tell the Government that if it thinks that the issue is important and that it should be doing something about it—and we all agree on those points—then it should do so.
Maurice Golden mentioned that this is nothing new and that it has been in the making for eight years. If we do not have any deadlines, we will probably be sitting here in another eight years thinking that we might progress soon. It is right that what has been lodged should set clear deadlines for the Government to just get on and do it. I am sure that most people would agree to that and would be able to support the amendments.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Douglas Lumsden
I will go through my amendments, most of which I see as clarification amendments.
The purpose of amendment 83 is to set out that, for the purposes of this section, unsold goods cannot be defined as waste if they are in perfectly good condition. The aim of the amendment is to discourage the defining of unsold goods that are in perfectly good condition as waste and therefore not to be included under this part of the legislation.
With amendment 86, I am asking the Government for a list of goods that will be exempt from the unsold goods regulations. Off the top of my head, I am thinking of things such as medical goods, which we might not want to be defined as unsold goods in this section.
I missed out amendment 84, but I will go back to it now. We spoke earlier about not wanting the legislation to be overly burdensome for businesses. Therefore, we will be looking for the Government to set out the value of the unsold goods that would be covered by the regulations. I realise that there are potential issues around doing that, and maybe this is a bit of a probing amendment. Is one screw an unsold good or does it need to be a bigger packet? Which value do you go on? Maybe there needs to be a bit more work on that.
The value of goods will also decrease over time. For example, an unsold laptop will have a high value but, after year 1, its value will be less and, after three years, it will be even less. After five years, it will probably not have any value at all. The amendment is meant to make it clear how we would work around that issue.
On amendment 88, if we want enforcement, we need to ensure that the body that is responsible for that is resourced adequately to carry out that function.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Douglas Lumsden
I had been thinking that there might have been some confusion, but I was not quite sure myself. Last week was a long week.
I will sum up on a few points. I was trying to intervene on Bob Doris, who was actually intervening on someone else. He had made the point that public bodies are already doing quite a lot on procurement procedures. The minister also mentioned having climate change duties for many such public bodies.
I listened to what Sarah Boyack said earlier about trying to increase the issue’s profile and get it further up the agenda. If a lot of that work is being done already, it should not place too much of a burden on public bodies to create their own circular economy plans. That would be a good thing for raising the profile and getting bodies to think about the steps that they can take. Much of that work will be there already and could be fed back to ministers for approval. Such an approach would not place a great burden on public bodies at all, but it would help us get to where we are trying to go.
The aim of my amendment 82 is simply to firm things up. The minister said that a lot of progress might happen in the future, once its approach goes through co-design. However, my amendment would put urgency at the forefront by saying that it must happen and that the Government must report. If the Government has nothing to hide, I am sure that that will be accepted. It should commit to doing so.
I will also speak to amendment 12. As we have heard, and whether it likes it or not, the Scottish Government has missed out on its past 12 emissions targets, and there have been no repercussions at all. The point of amendment 12 is to say that if the Government is serious about hitting its targets, there has to be some penalty. It cannot just be the case that it misses its targets every year but nothing happens until the next year, when the targets might be missed again or they might be hit. The aim of amendment 12 is to say, “If you do not meet it, something is going to happen. There is going to be a fine.” It is to get the Government to step up. There is a good set of amendments in this group.
I will press amendment 82.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Douglas Lumsden
Will the minister take a further intervention?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Douglas Lumsden
I agree that more probably needs to be done by the designers of products to get us to a circular economy, but how does the Scottish Government fit into that process? For example, once my phone battery starts fading, I will probably get a new phone. What steps can the Government take to influence manufacturers on that?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Douglas Lumsden
When I was listening to you, I was thinking of fly-tipping, because I can see some real benefits to your suggestion. If someone sees something get dumped when they are out somewhere, they might not know which local authority they should report the incident to, and they might have to try to give a description of exactly where they are. With an app, they could give a location using the global positioning system and take a picture of what has been dumped. There could be real benefits to having an app. I imagine that such information would be fed back to the local authority for it to decide whether to take action. It is about making things easier.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Douglas Lumsden
In our evidence taking, we visited Leith and went to the Edinburgh Tool Library and the Edinburgh Remakery. It is not only local authorities that have a part to play here; for example, men’s sheds could play a big part, too. Does the member envisage the funding for such organisations always going through the local government route or would there be a role for the Government in directly funding some of the organisations that provide services in our communities?