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 5978 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Edward Mountain
I am not saying that they are holding things up; I am asking whether they are preventing developments that might have benefits across the whole environment rather than just in the area that was designated or that falls within the designation for a species of flora or fauna.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Edward Mountain
A lot of chemical applications will be for on-label use but will involve a different permutation of the chemical application. They will have data sheets anyway, and, if companies have applied for use in the European Union, surely they will be submitting that information voluntarily, and the questions asked by the European Union will also apply to the HSE regarding the use of that chemical in the UK. Therefore, it should surely not slow things up that much.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Edward Mountain
I want to check that I understand this. The application processes in the UK and the EU will run in tandem, so a lot of information that will be asked for will be similar. I cannot see how things will be slowed down for companies.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Edward Mountain
I am sorry, Mr Ruskell—I did not quite hear that question.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Edward Mountain
I was hoping that Natalie Don was not about to say no there. We are agreed.
Minister, you can slip away now. I know that you are busy.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Edward Mountain
That concludes the public part of our meeting.
11:16 Meeting continued in private until 12:37.Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 4 October 2022
Edward Mountain
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 26th meeting in 2022 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee.
Agenda item 1 is consideration of whether to take agenda items 6, 7 and 8 in private. Item 6 is consideration of evidence that we will hear on the legislative consent memorandum on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill; item 7 is consideration of the committee’s work programme; and item 8 is consideration of candidates for the post of adviser on climate change. Do members agree to take those items in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Edward Mountain
I think that “illness” is sufficient, because it puts the expectation on to the members to explain to themselves that it is a serious illness, rather than having to explain to anyone else.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Edward Mountain
I noticed something in the letter from the Parliamentary Bureau. I know that it is not going to happen, but I am a great one for making preparations in case a thing does happen. The bureau talks about the possibility of a proxy vote being incorrectly used and about whether we ought to have some sanction for that. I believe that that will never happen. However, if it does, that will be a serious breach of standards of conduct. If possible, I would like the clerks to think about whether that is covered by the “Code of Conduct for Members of the Scottish Parliament”. Personally, I think that we ought to write something in there to say that a breach of the use of the proxy will make a member fall foul of section whatever-it-is in the standing orders. I have not looked it up—I apologise.
Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Edward Mountain
Absolutely.