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
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
Does anyone else have any comments?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
Cabinet secretary, do you want to comment on anything that you have heard?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
The question is, that motion S6M-13568, in the name of Gillian Martin, be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Motion agreed to,
That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the Environmental Protection (Single-use Vapes) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
Welcome back. Agenda item 5 is consideration of another draft statutory instrument. I welcome Gillian Martin, the Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy. She is joined by officials from the Scottish Government: Andrew Mackie, head of environment and forestry sponsorship hub; David McPhee, deputy director, circular economy; and Carolyn Boyd, a lawyer.
The instrument is laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that it cannot come into force unless the Parliament approves it. Following the evidence session, the committee will be invited, under the next agenda item, to consider a motion for the committee to recommend that the instrument be approved. I remind everyone that the Scottish Government officials will be able to speak under this item but not in the debate that follows.
I invite the cabinet secretary to make a short opening statement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
I have a final question. This is good news, as far as it reads, but my concern is that it would cost a massive amount of money to electrify the two most difficult railway lines—the one from Perth to Aberdeen and the one up to Inverness. We have seen the cost of electrification between Glasgow and Edinburgh, but those are the two lines that need most investment and most trains, because diesel trains are used to chug up there. If there is an open contract, surely people will go for the easy option and, yet again, Aberdeen and Inverness will be left on the sidelines with old trains—or will you ensure that that does not happen?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
I hope that you are right. Inverness has often been last to get investment, whether it be in roads or rail, so it will be interesting to see what happens.
Thank you for making the announcement to the committee and for answering our questions. I will briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a change of witnesses.
10:17 Meeting suspended.Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
Okay. Fine. Thank you for pointing that out to me. As you can imagine, I do not have time to look at my computer while I am trying to convene this meeting. I now know that there will be a GIQ, and the clerks will make sure that committee members get that.
I apologise for that interruption, and I thank members for pointing out that information, but the—
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
It is a very interesting question. I am thinking about some local authorities that burn a lot of their waste because there is no other way to dispose of it—those with island communities, for example—and I wonder whether they will be disadvantaged as a result of the proposal. Cabinet secretary, could you address that issue?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
I encourage committee members to put short questions, and witnesses to give short answers, because we are quite pushed for time.
I have a very short question. On 1 April 2025, will the whole of the United Kingdom or just Scotland implement the measures?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Edward Mountain
The deputy convener has some questions.
10:45