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 5973 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Edward Mountain
Don’t do this to me, Tim. We are on amendment 216, which has been debated with amendment 488.
Amendment 216 moved—[Tim Eagle].
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Edward Mountain
The result of the division is: For 3, Against 4, Abstentions 0.
Amendment 478 disagreed to.
Amendments 479 and 480 not moved.
Amendment 481 moved—[Mark Ruskell].
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Edward Mountain
The question is, that amendment 481 be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Edward Mountain
When we were taking evidence during stage 1, there seemed to be an appetite—certainly when we spoke to the smallholders—for an agriculture law rather than the creation of new legislation to strengthen old legislation that was perhaps failing. Why did you discount that, and why do you think that what you propose is better when every iteration that I have seen of changes to the crofting acts has added problems and created further confusion and further dilemmas about which act to respond to with regard to crofting?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Edward Mountain
The question is, that amendment 216 be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members: No.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Edward Mountain
The result of the division is: For 2, Against 5, Abstentions 0.
Amendment 216 disagreed to.
Amendment 217 not moved.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Edward Mountain
The result of the division is: For 1, Against 5, Abstentions 1.
Amendment 482 disagreed to.
Amendment 483 moved—[Mark Ruskell].
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Edward Mountain
I am sure that Monica Lennon will respond to the following points when she winds up. To correct Michael Matheson, which I do not do without being careful, the Crown Estate has estates on land as well as at sea. Those estates are spread across Scotland and are not only agricultural. The Crown Estate has other interests as well.
I tend to agree with Monica Lennon that Crown Estate reform was probably overdue when it was carried out. It is a journey that we are only part of the way through, and we are waiting to see its full effects. I have long argued about the issue of which organisation should realistically get the income from ScotWind and whether that should be Crown Estate Scotland or the Scottish Government. The sale of a long-term lease is actually revenue, so a percentage is kept by the Crown Estate and a percentage goes to the Government, and capital has to be reinvested back by the Crown Estate into the estate itself.
I am taken by the fact that, 19 years ago, Bidwells—I declare that I worked there then—managed Crown Estate lands in a part of Scotland. It was interesting due to the complexity of the management of those lands, which was not carried out by the Crown Estate but by surveyors and by several firms around Scotland. That ensured that there was the capacity to manage the land. I strongly question whether local authorities would have the scope to carry out the management of the Crown estate foreshore if that were to be passed over to them.
I also agree with the deputy convener that, when it comes to the management of the Crown estate, it is good that that is done by a central body across Scotland. That means that there is no dubiety and that there are not the huge variations that there could be in, say, how much local authorities charge for even a minor thing such as the mooring of a buoy on the seabed .
I am nervous about the amendments. I can see why they might be attractive, but maybe the cabinet secretary can set all our minds at rest. We come to you now, cabinet secretary.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Edward Mountain
I thank the cabinet secretary, and I come back to Mercedes Villalba to press or withdraw amendment 381.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 18 June 2025
Edward Mountain
I could get myself confused here, because the cabinet secretary had finished, and I let Rachael Hamilton ask another question. Rachael, you will, of course, get an opportunity to wind up and press or withdraw your amendment and, at that point, if you ask the right questions, you could maybe tempt the cabinet secretary to come back in.
I ask you to wind up and indicate whether you wish to press or withdraw amendment 478.