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 2100 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Bob Doris
The deputy convener has worked through most of the questions that I was going to ask; however, I will take the opportunity to put something additional on the record. We have talked about needing different business models, particularly from large manufacturers and retailers, and not only in Scotland but internationally, rather than having a “take, make and dispose” economy. I am conscious that the word “use” is not always part of that, given what we have been talking about.
Do you want to say any more about the business models that are really damaging our environment and the circular economy? It would perhaps be more constructive to talk about business models that are being developed that the bill could incentivise or drive, if we could make it stronger. I put that on the record; the deputy convener has covered most of what I wanted to ask.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Bob Doris
I had no interest to declare but, as I was listening to the questions, I thought that perhaps I should mention that I am patron of the Glasgow Access Panel, which is based in Maryhill in my constituency, and that there is a crossover in some of the work. Although that is not formally declarable, I put it on the record for the sake of transparency.
I have a couple of questions. My first relates to the education and awareness campaign. Most people accept that pavement parking is pretty inconsiderate—drivers know what they are doing, but they are a bit inconsiderate. We have to change that culture. However, drivers are often oblivious to dropped kerbs. That is an unintended consequence, which is due not to wilful ignorance but to a lack of awareness. Will the education campaign take that on board? There is a difference in where drivers are in relation to those things.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Bob Doris
Thank you, convener. It is a pleasure to be a member of the committee. As usual, I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests, but I do not think that anything there is particularly relevant to the work and proceedings of this committee.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Bob Doris
Thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Bob Doris
My question was not inspired by nappies, although I should declare an interest as I have a two-year-old and it would be a significant burden on me to move to non-disposable nappies. However, I am willing to be convinced for the sake of environment. It is more about the point that Kim Pratt made that we identify straws, bags or cups case by case, and move at a relatively slow pace, knocking off one at a time.
Is there a need for the bill to cover, or for Government more generally to legislate on, a cluster of items for which we can all agree that single use should not exist, rather than simply asserting that all single-use items should be banned as a matter of course? Is there a better way of doing it than moving forward one campaign at a time? We could bring a cluster of items together and try to legislate on that.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 14 November 2023
Bob Doris
I want to ask about enforcement and the guidance on that.
Glasgow City Council—certainly in my constituency—is very good. I have constituents who use wheelchairs and mobility scooters and who had no access to local services. The council had a direct conversation with them about their lived experience and put in dropped kerbs to allow them to go about their lives.
However, when it comes to enforcement, there are breaches from drivers. I get that enforcement has to be intelligence led, practical and cost effective. That might lead to enforcement in areas where other enforcement is already taking place—where there are clusters of potential driver breaches. In addition, it might not be in their local communities that those on a mobility scooter or in a wheelchair have their lives devastated by not being able to cross the road. A constituent of mine has had to travel an alternative route of almost one mile because of breaches involving dropped kerbs.
What guidance is there that local authorities should not focus their enforcement only on clusters of potential breaches or on areas where enforcement is cost effective, but should carry out enforcement where there are individual breaches that could absolutely devastate the lives of those with mobility issues?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Bob Doris
I could not get involved in an evidence session on kinship care without putting on record my thanks to campaigners whom I first met in 2006, ahead of the 2007 election, at a hustings in the constituency that I now serve, and to Adam Ingram for his challenging work on kinship care payments as Minister for Children and Early Years. I also record my thanks to Glasgow City Council, which I met back in those early days and which, after meeting me, agreed to a £50-a-week kinship care allowance. That seems tiny now, but at the time it was groundbreaking. That shows how far we have come, although we obviously need to go further.
I am sorry, convener, for putting that on the record. Institutional memory is sometimes important in sessions such as this.
I have a supplementary to Mr Mason’s question, which I will ask before my substantive question. Mr Mason asked about the wider support that kinship carers receive. The wider support that they want is often for the young people whom they are looking after. Many of those young people have emotional and mental health and wellbeing issues, have experienced significant trauma and have to wait for child and adolescent mental health services and other services, which are often delivered by the national health service rather than by local authorities.
In my constituency, there is the Notre Dame Centre, which is a centre of excellence for dealing with such situations. It takes specific referrals on kinship care. It has a very delicate funding framework to ensure that it can continue to do that. To what extent, minister, do you assure yourself that the wider support for the emotional wellbeing of young people in kinship care and for the trauma that they have experienced is adequate and consistent across Scotland?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Bob Doris
Dr Rushton, you said that you commissioned a review, which I think you said cost £50,000. Can you co-commission research and reviews? Mr Griffin is talking about setting up a new body for Scotland with a very modest research budget. There is also SCOSS, which, as we have heard, is not necessarily proactive in the area, because of its other commitments. Can IIAC co-commission research jointly, whether that be with SCOSS or another Scottish body, even though you are making recommendations not at the Scotland level but at the UK level?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Bob Doris
That is very helpful.
We have focused on eligibility for industrial injuries disablement benefit. You may have said some of this other stuff already, but will you say a little more about the work of IIAC on wider issues around workplace health and safety that you are involved in, separately from making recommendations or presenting evidence to the UK Government about whether we should extend eligibility for industrial injuries disablement benefit?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 9 November 2023
Bob Doris
Thank you. I think that you must have read the question paper, because you are pre-empting my questions superbly. That answer was extremely helpful, because I was going to ask you about any on-going work programmes with the Health and Safety Executive. That goes back to Mr Mason’s question about whether there is duplication or overlap in what you do, work that is complementary, or a combination of all three.
I am conscious of the fact that, earlier this year, the Health and Safety Executive produced some research on Covid, although not long Covid. It also looked at cancer in the construction industry, although not among firefighters—cancer among firefighters is very topical at the moment. The Health and Safety Executive is already doing a lot of work in the area, and you have helpfully put on record that you observe some of that and work in partnership with it, which is important, but do you want to say any more about your on-going work or partnership work?
I am particularly interested in long Covid, neurodegenerative disease in footballers and cancers in firefighters, but please do not restrict yourself to that list simply because I have asked about those issues. I am trying to understand the dynamic between what you research, what you commission, what the Health and Safety Executive does and how that all fits together.