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 成人快手 and committees will automatically update to show only the 成人快手 and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of 成人快手 and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of 成人快手 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 5980 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Edward Mountain
Thank you, cabinet secretary and your officials who attended but were not put under any pressure.
I now suspend the meeting so that we can prepare for our next item.
09:11 Meeting suspended.Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Edward Mountain
It would also be helpful to clarify what the future policy on that will be, because this is about looking forward.
As no other committee member wants to ask a question, my question at the end is to you, minister. I have mentioned a couple of times the REC Committee report from the previous session. I have to admit that I am heavily invested in that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Edward Mountain
Thank you for your submission of 21 February on decarbonising Scotland鈥檚 ferries on the route to net zero, which was useful. Do you believe that the Scottish Government鈥檚 ferry services can be carbon neutral by 2045, particularly in light of the fact that CMAL is purchasing four marine-oil-powered vessels, with an expected lifespan of 30 years, and on the basis that we heard from Norway that you cannot change fuels midway through a vessel鈥檚 life? Norway鈥檚 opinion is that if a vessel is built for a particular fuel, that is what you are left with.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Edward Mountain
So will you be commissioning more LNG ships?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Edward Mountain
I am confused by your answer. In that report, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee said that it was a 鈥渃luttered decision-making鈥 process that 鈥渓acks transparency鈥; that there had been 鈥渧arying degrees of failure鈥; that CMAL and the Scottish Government
鈥渇ailed to discharge their respective responsibilities ... effectively鈥;
and that the experience of the contracts for 801 and 802 鈥渆xposed serious failures鈥 in the tripartite arrangement, which therefore needs
鈥渁 root and branch overhaul鈥.
Basically, the REC Committee said that CMAL failed but, on the way forward, you are saying, 鈥淚t鈥檚 fine. There鈥檚 not a problem. Let鈥檚 just crack on.鈥 Is that what you are saying? If it is, I am seriously concerned for ferry procurement in Scotland.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Edward Mountain
Do you challenge it only on the basis that you are making creeping changes?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Edward Mountain
Okay. I will come back to that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Edward Mountain
I did not interrupt you, so please do not interrupt me, because that will not start us off on the right foot.
The RECC report says that
鈥淭ransport Scotland and CMAL applied inadequate due diligence in scrutinising and signing off the ... process鈥
and that 鈥淚nsufficient due diligence鈥 was undertaken. Those words are all in the report.
We are talking about a project that was due to cost 拢97 million but which is probably going to end up costing 拢0.5 billion. Forgive me if I do not understand why the people of Scotland should not find that of due concern, when your organisation was overseeing the contract. Explain to me why they should not.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Edward Mountain
I totally agree with you. One of the things that the report mentions is transparency. We know that two of the vessels are going to cost 拢111 million. I would like to know, for example, whether you have addressed the issue of staged payments. Have you addressed all the other points that were made in the RECC report? When we ask for that information, we are told that is commercially sensitive, so we cannot have it. Therefore, it is very difficult for people to scrutinise the process and understand whether there has been change.
Maybe we should leave that issue there, but I would say that looking forward is about learning from history so that you do not repeat the same mistake.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 February 2023
Edward Mountain
We now move to questions from Mark Ruskell.