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 MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs 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 1571 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 29 May 2024
Maggie Chapman
It goes back to the questions around enterprise support and innovation and that link. One of the challenges—Kevin Stewart probably knows some examples of this, as well—is that engineers who are working in renewables need financial support to develop their prototypes and ideas, but they only get it for a limited time and some such things take a few years to develop. Is there a body of work that has been done, or is there work that could be done, on ensuring that we support the innovative people who want to be part of delivery of the outcomes that you were talking about? Is there a way to think more creatively about how we can allow those people to focus on their innovations and be able to live at the same time?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 29 May 2024
Maggie Chapman
It is sometimes one or two people.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 29 May 2024
Maggie Chapman
Thank you for that. Moving on to the green industrial strategy and the just transition, I hear what you say about the restrictions on what you can say during the purdah period. However, already this morning, you have talked about cross-Government working and the need for a strong economy to support our ambitions—you talked about ambitions in relation to health, education and apprenticeships in response to Brian Whittle’s questions. Do you see the green industrial strategy as being an overarching economic approach, or as being more to do with specific and narrowly focused—not in a bad way—objectives and aims?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 29 May 2024
Maggie Chapman
My next question was actually going to be about making the energy transition fair for everybody. As you say, we have not done that sort of thing well in the past, with the result that inequalities have widened and perpetuated in our economy and our society.
As well as the issue of macro-energy, if I can call it that—I mean the big stuff around renewables—we desperately need a focus on and investment in things such as retrofitting houses, because we cannot build new houses for all the people who are currently living in shoddy homes. Action in that regard is as urgent as action on renewables and so on, and must take place concurrently. How do you see the supply chain and people’s skill sets working in that regard?
That links to what you said about communities, because one of the things that came out strongly in the inquiry that the committee held on the just transition for the north-east and Moray is that communities do not trust that the things that you mention will happen. I think that that is because they do not see material benefits in their own lives—for example, they do not see their homes being retrofitted or local transport links improving so that they can get to local jobs that might be available. That direct translation of economic activity into people’s lives is utterly missing at the moment. How will all the work around the just transition and the green industrial strategy deliver in that regard?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 29 May 2024
Maggie Chapman
I might follow up on a couple of those issues later.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 29 May 2024
Maggie Chapman
In your opening remarks, you mentioned the strength and potential of Scotland’s wind energy economy. One of the concerns around that is whether we can connect up the necessary supply chains in Scotland. The business objectives and the pressures on businesses are important in that regard. However, you have not talked about how the economy supports communities and how we can ensure that the private investment that comes in to do the important and valuable work does not just suck the benefits out of local communities. How can we strike a balance in that regard? What is your role in that? How can the green industrial strategy ensure that we support vibrant local economies as well as maximising investment and generating the profits that we need in order to support public services?
10:15Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 29 May 2024
Maggie Chapman
Good morning. I am interested in talking about the green industrial strategy and the just transition, but first I have a question about Glasgow Prestwick Airport Ltd. When we visited the airport, we heard that some employees there are still not receiving the real living wage. Given that the business is owned by the Scottish Government, do you think that that is appropriate? What steps will you take to remedy the situation?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 29 May 2024
Maggie Chapman
Can I ask one final question?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 28 May 2024
Maggie Chapman
That is right. There need to be differences in what “accountability” even means. It is not possible for 129 MSPs to have the technical expertise that is necessary for some functions, but it is possible for 129 MSPs to understand what rights realisation outcomes look like. There would be very different routes and requirements for accountability in that different architecture.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 28 May 2024
Maggie Chapman
There are a couple of different points in that. Overall, £18.2 million is not a large proportion of the overall budget. It is the expectation of members of the public for such bodies to deliver for them that is of interest to us, however. The resources enable commissioners to carry out their role, but it is the task that should be of primary interest. When there are disparities in resource—with £640,000 as the expected budget for the patient safety commissioner, I think David McGill said—what would that office be able to do in comparison with some of the similar mechanisms that might already exist within the NHS, with all the financial and institutional backing that it has? There are legitimate questions around those issues.