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 ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ 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 2361 contributions
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
That is interesting. When it comes to how that taxonomy is interpreted within the devolution settlement, within the UK and across Europe, where there are sub-state actors that are looking to invest in particular technologies, do you have any thoughts on how that might play out?
We are meeting in Scotland, which has vast renewable resources. If you were to devise a green taxonomy for Scotland, maybe by creating a financial centre for green investment in Edinburgh, what would that look like? Could that exist within an EU taxonomy that is perhaps tilted in a slightly different direction, or which emphasises some technologies over others? Do you have any thoughts on that?
09:15Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
The tracker is a really useful tool and a really useful summary for policy makers. It is exciting to hear that you want to overlay some of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and devolution aspects.
The tracker highlights financial services, greening finance and the development of a UK taxonomy. Where do you see potential divergence or alignment with the EU or other countries that are developing their own taxonomies? In the EU, there has been a strong debate about the inclusion of gas and nuclear in its taxonomy. Do you see an inevitable alignment there, given that we face similar energy challenges across Europe, or is there a different tilt or perspective with other countries that might end up getting wrapped up in some of the trade deals that the UK is looking to set up?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
I have a final question about the EU emissions trading scheme. I think that you say in your tracker that you expect the scope of that to be significantly widened. Do you see the UK falling into the same scope, or do think that there might be tensions over aviation or other areas?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
Is there a need for that consistency? You mentioned Inverclyde as an exemplar, but does there need to be guidance on the issue to all health boards or is it the responsibility of community planning partnerships? Should there be an expectation on authorities to do that mapping work and evolve the approach?
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
I see a fuzziness between the boundaries of what projects are doing. They might be delivering objectives in different areas.
I ask Diana Murray for her reflections on that.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
That is particularly true with areas such as monitoring and evaluation of projects, and trying to share the understanding of how to do that.
I have a final question, which is a bigger one. The Government has a wellbeing economy bill slated to be introduced in this session of Parliament. Do you have any thoughts about that higher level of governance in Scotland and what could be in that bill to support the sort of initiatives that we are talking about? Is it about having the right kind of indicator? Is it about having a commissioner who can look at the needs of future generations? What would be useful to have at a legislative level to help to drive progress in the area and ensure that we do not forget about this work but prioritise it?
Do not worry if you do not have an answer, because there is time for you to feed into the Government consultations, but I am interested to know whether you have any top lines.
Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee
Meeting date: 24 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
To put it simply, the issue is how we utilise the resources and the advantages that we have with energy in Scotland to maximise the opportunities for green investment here and create a focus under a green taxonomy. Does the potential exist for there to be a divergence or a particular emphasis in Scotland under a green investment taxonomy in the UK?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
I will do my best, convener. I appreciate that we are going back to a lot of the fundamental arguments of the scheme that were debated back in 2019, but where will the funding go? Will it be in addition to the funding that councils have already allocated to public transport schemes to make people’s journeys to work easier? Some people will look at this and think, “I might have to pay more money to get to work. How will my travel to work be easier as a result?”
I can see concrete additional benefits such as the acceleration of existing programmes and schemes that councils are considering or bringing in new initiatives such as park and rides or better public transport facilities to make it easier for people, rather than having people think, “This is just another tax that I will have to pay.”
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
You are getting hung up on the word “modelling”. This is not a simple input-output spreadsheet, in which one puts the cost of WPL in and then gets a kind of output from it. All councils need to consider the experience of places where workplace parking levies have been introduced and need to have detailed discussions with employers that operate in their areas, and with communities, about how the scheme might work.
It is only through doing that work that we will understand the aspirations of employers and whether they might wish to move back to city centre locations that would benefit the local economy and might have lower numbers of parking spaces. We will not put all that data into a spreadsheet and suddenly get an answer. The process requires that discussion with individual employers—that local democratic process—to work out how a workplace parking levy could be introduced.
We have good evidence from places where the scheme has been introduced in England. The quicker we can introduce WPL in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the quicker we will have a solid base of evidence to empower other local authorities and decide whether the scheme is the right thing for them. We can only get to the end of the process by learning through doing and implementing the workplace parking levy on the ground.
I come back to what has changed since 2019. The climate emergency has accelerated, and we in the committee all know how hard it is to bring down transport emissions. The low-hanging fruit is gone; we have to make decisions. The Parliament decided in 2019 to put the levy in as an option for local authorities to deliver.
We also know that congestion is not coming down in our cities, which is damaging not just to our health but to our economy. Seven billion pounds were lost to the UK economy this past year through congestion, which does not benefit anybody—neither the businesses that have concerns about the workplace parking levy, nor any part of our economy or society.
Monica Lennon talks about the decline of bus services. We share some concerns in that area. I see the scheme as a way of investing additional resources and funding to give everybody a much better alternative to the car. That process needs work, and the existing programmes of local councils will not be enough to meet the 20 per cent vehicle reduction—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 22 February 2022
Mark Ruskell
Yes, if I have time.