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 399 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Tim Eagle
I thank the cabinet secretary. The remarks that have been made already give some comfort on this matter, but I will try to explain where I was coming from with amendment 508A.
Proposed new paragraph 5E, which amendment 508 will insert into the schedule, allows the landholder to be compensated for game management damage to the landholding. Amendment 508A would clarify that that part of the scheduleâand thus compensationâwould apply only to direct damage.
Requiring the damage to be direct would make the law far more certain and improve its enforceability while minimising costs to all parties. As drafted, the provision creates a wide and slightly unclear definition. The current scope of compensation raises significant legal questions, particularly regarding causation and the evidentiary challenges that are associated with disease transmission. As a result, claims against landowners outwith direct causation could encompass a wide range of losses over which they may have little or no control. Therefore, amendment 508A seeks to ensure that a tenant can claim compensation only for direct damage.
My amendment 508B would further amend amendment 508 at subparagraph 5E(2), which states:
âThe landholder is entitled to be compensated by the landlord where game or game management have caused the landholder to sustainâ
damage
â(whether directly or indirectly)â.
Amendment 508B seeks to delete the phrase â(whether directly or indirectly)â. Together with amendment 508A, that would ensure that the tenant would be able to receive compensation only for damage directly sustained.
Amendment 216 seeks to strengthen the requirement on ministers to set out by regulations the basis on which the valuer is to assess the compensation payable. Currently, the bill says:
âThe Scottish Ministers may by regulations modify this paragraph so as to specify the basis on which the valuer is to assess the compensation payable and the consideration to be given to certain matters by the valuer in doing so.â
The valuer is currently allowed to assess the amount of compensation to which the landlord or small landholder is entitled under that part of the schedule. Amendment 216 would change that requirement from âmayâ to âmustâ. That would mean that the Scottish ministers would have a duty to specify the basis on which the valuer is to specify the compensation payable.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Tim Eagle
Amendment 219?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Tim Eagle
Amendment 223 relates to section 9 of the bill and deals with the extension of the tenant farming commissionerâs functions. I do not intend to press itâit is more of a probing amendment.
Section 9 largely modifies the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016, and the bill seeks to keep reference to the 1991 act and the Land Reform (Scotland) 2003 Act, and to add reference to section 30 of the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886, which I am sure that you are all very familiar with.
For clarity, section 30 of the 1886 act allows for a sole arbiter to be chosen. It states that
âthe landlord and the crofter may agree to accept the decision of a sole arbiter mutually chosen instead of the decision of the Crofters Commission, and in that case any order pronounced by such sole arbiter shall, when recorded in the âCrofters Holdings Bookâ along with the agreement to accept his decision, be as effectual to all intents and purposes as an order of the Crofters Commissionâ.
My amendment would delete the modifications that the bill makes to subsection (9) and would, in effect, delete section 30 of the 1886 act. I raise the issue because I have heard concerns from stakeholders that including section 30 of the 1886 act could introduce an absolute right to buy. Therefore, I am looking for the cabinet secretaryâs guidance in order to get clarity on the effect of this provision.
19:30Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Tim Eagle
I simply reiterate the wider point that, while I am to some degree sympathetic to the requirement to tackle the climate and nature emergency, as some people put it, we are an island nation and we cannot make any more land. For me, andâI thinkâfor many people in Scotland, food security is of the utmost importance, and I think that there are risks when we go down the line of starting to give away potentially large swathes of land for environmental reasons. Farmers across the nation are already doing incredible work that brings together food security and work on nature, biodiversity and climate change. That is what I am trying to get across with amendment 183.
Having said all that, however, I will not press amendment 183 or move amendment 487.
Amendment 183, by agreement, withdrawn.
Amendment 487 not moved.
Section 7 agreed to.
After section 7
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Tim Eagle
Apologies, convenerâwhat number did you say?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Tim Eagle
I declare an interest as an active farmer in Buckie and as a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyorsâthat came up yesterday.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Tim Eagle
My amendment 218 would amend the part of the schedule that deals with âTransfers not requiring noticeâ, which is paragraph 49.
As drafted, the bill allows ministers to amend that paragraph by regulationâthey could make changes to subparagraphs (1) to (4). Those cover a significant number of provisions, which deal with the reasons why a transfer of land would be exempt from providing
âNotice of proposal to transfer landâ,
which is outlined in paragraph 48 of the schedule and applies to certain instances.
Amendment 218 would restrict the ministersâ powers and mean that the only change that ministers can make by regulation to paragraph 49 would be to add to the list of
âtransfers of land that are exempt transfers for the purposes of paragraph 48â.
My amendment 222 has a similar ambition. As drafted, the bill includes a paragraph in the schedule titled:
âRegistration of small landholderâs interest: power to modify provisionsâ.
It includes a subparagraph that will allow ministers to modify various previous paragraphs. Those powers are too broad in scope and the subparagraph should be more narrowly drafted, which is what my amendment 222 aims to do.
I lodged some amendments to amendment 225 today, which I think that we will discuss next week, and I will not move amendment 226 because my new amendment 543, which we will also discuss next week, replaces it.
In light of what the cabinet secretary has just said, I will not comment on amendment 227. I will be happy to work with her on the amendment over the summer.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Tim Eagle
Do you want to speak first?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Tim Eagle
The issue is quite interesting. I remember that it came up when I was a councillor in 2018, and we had quite a wide debate on it. At one point, I think that there was a proposal from the Government about whether Crown estate management could fall to councils. Ultimately, for the reasons that Michael Matheson has given, we said, âWe just cannot manage this.â
In theory, it would be great to have more local involvement in management, but I imagine that the way things stood in 2018 would be the same today, so councils would just not be able to run the proposed approach. Knowledge and experience come from having Crown Estate Scotland in place. I could get behind the amendments in some ways, but the history tells us that, for councils, the proposal just would not be possible at the moment.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Tim Eagle
My amendments 183 and 487 seek to remove the provisions in the bill that will introduce a model lease. Amendment 487 seeks to delete section 7, on model leases.
Realistically, I do not think that I will press the amendments to a vote, but I have lodged them for a reason, which is that stakeholders such as NFU Scotland believe that the current tenancy structure is sufficient. In addition, the NFUS has expressed a wider concern that the provisions in section 7 could result in the removal of land from agricultural production. I strongly support maintaining land, particularly good-quality land, for agricultural production.
The bill as introduced requires ministers
âto make publicly available a model lease designed for letting land so that it can be used ... for an environmental purposeâ
via section 7. Section 7(4) sets out what is meant by âenvironmental purposeâ. However, I feel that there is already scope in legislation for land to be used for a variety of reasons, and I therefore do not believe that the model lease is needed.
I am interested in the policy intent behind amendment 380, in the name of Ariane Burgess, on a model lease for hutting, and in the cabinet secretaryâs response to that, as I have some concerns that it could be overly burdensome.
I move amendment 183.