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 2045 contributions
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 2 May 2024
Bob Doris
I have one more question if there is time, convener. I am not sighted on the questions that committee members are going to ask, so if another member is asking this question, I will just leave it. It is in relation to randomised ballot papers at elections.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 2 May 2024
Bob Doris
That is kind of you, convener. You can tell that I was previously a member of the committee, as you have asked me to be short.
Minister, as you know, I have raised in Parliament—and I have met you to talk about—concerns over voter education and the parts of the country in which there is a prevalence of spoiled papers. I mention specifically the Canal ward in my constituency. I have been working with councillors Allan Gow and Jacqueline McLaren because, at the most recent council elections, that ward had the highest number of spoiled papers in Scotland, at three times the national average. The votes were accidentally spoiled by multiple voting for two or three candidates from the same party.
I am keen for the Electoral Commission to step forward not just when there is an election but all year round. I put it to you that the bill could be a vehicle for putting some form of statutory duty on the Electoral Commission to do some of that voter education, targeted locally. Might the bill remain a vehicle for achieving some of those ambitions?
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 2 May 2024
Bob Doris
That is encouraging, minister.
Convener, I would like to clarify something. In the bill, I noticed part 5 on increased democratic engagement and part 8 on the Electoral Commission. At this stage, has the Government thought about where an amendment might best sit? Clearly, away from this committee, we will work diligently to agree a suitable amendment, but do you have any initial thoughts?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 1 May 2024
Bob Doris
Because of time constraints, I will not ask other witnesses whether that happens more often, but if it does, the committee would be quite keen to hear about it. If employers wait until they have vacancies before they ask you, “How can a disabled person fit this role?”, they might have already created a job that is not suitable for someone who faces additional barriers to—sorry for the clumsy expression—mainstream employment.
I will pursue my final question with Elizabeth Baird. Employers might be close to having a business case to employ maybe another 1 or 1.5 employees, irrespective of whether those people have disabilities. It is a fine line and there is a tipping point if you go into recruitment and are not expanding your number of employees. I think that Ms Baird talked about wage subsidies earlier. Could you give a little bit of clarity about where those wage subsidies come from and what role the DWP has in that?
A lot of people seeking employment will be on employment and support allowance. I know that they can keep some of the ESA if they are in employment for under 16 hours a week, but there must surely be a business model in which we can get people into long-term well-paid jobs and off ESA. That way, the taxpayer will be a winner, the DWP will be a winner and, more importantly, the person with the disability will be a winner. Community jobs Scotland, for example, was very good at doing that kind of thing. Can you say anything about where wage subsidies play a part? Are there opportunities for them to do more?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 1 May 2024
Bob Doris
I would love to hear more, but I know that we are pressed for time and I will not ask any more questions. Thank you very much.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 1 May 2024
Bob Doris
I know that we are pressed for time, so I will try to be brief. I have two brief questions.
The first goes back to comments that Elizabeth Baird made about supporting employers to take on people living with disabilities. That can, of course, happen when vacancies arise, but it could also be possible to say to a large employer, “Let us look at your set-up as an employer. Where could there be positions that would be suitable for someone with disabilities?” Does that second thing happen? Could you say a bit more about that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 1 May 2024
Bob Doris
I am not trying to get at an issue that is not there; I am thinking about an opportunity. Was there a proactive partnership with DWP? Would that be beneficial in the future?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Bob Doris
That is helpful. I do not think that that is an admission; it is just the reality of the world that we live in across parties and across Governments. My colleagues spoke about the fair fares review, and one of your officials, Bettina Sizeland, also mentioned it. I spoke in the debate without a motion and I thought that that was an excellent way to find out where the Parliament stands on an issue, so that we are not boxed in by party positions. During the debate, I made the point that, in Glasgow or Strathclyde, there is already a degree of integration and there are a variety of platforms—for example, the old zone card still exists and there are multicompany bus tickets. I made the case that Glasgow would be well placed to be part of an integrated ticketing pilot as well as a flat fare pilot, which is also being considered, and that those pilots should integrate bus and rail.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Bob Doris
I will point out that what I am doing, though—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 April 2024
Bob Doris
I will come to my question. However, I note that other colleagues have asked specific questions about the fair fares review and integrated ticketing pilots. All that I am doing is asking a question that is similar to what colleagues have already asked—they were not told that they were straying from the point, which I think is important.
What is your timeline for identifying areas that may be considered for a pilot? How would members such as Monica Lennon, Mark Ruskell and me know that our area is being actively considered, so that we can get involved and support any bids or pilots that may be in the pipeline?