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: 19 March 2024
Edward Mountain
Liz, do you want to add anything?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Edward Mountain
Welcome back. We continue our consideration of Scotland’s railways by hearing from a second panel, which is made up of representatives of rail operators. I am pleased to welcome Kathryn Darbandi, who is the managing director of Caledonian Sleeper Ltd; Alex Hynes, who is the managing director of Scotland’s Railway; Joanne Maguire, who is the chief operating officer of ScotRail Trains Ltd; and Liam Sumpter, who is the route director of Network Rail Scotland. Thank you for joining us today.
I put on record the fact that I was one of the first conveners that Alex Hynes had the misfortune to come across when he took over his position in 2017. He has now accepted a secondment as director general for rail services for Transport UK, I think, which, to my mind, is recognition of the hard work that he has done. Congratulations on that appointment, Alex. It is fitting that I should get the last chance to have a go at you before you go. [Laughter.] I will be very gentle. I will not remind you about the bridge at Dalwhinnie, except to put on record the fact that you promised that it would be replaced and it still has not been.
I will begin with a question for Joanne Maguire about budgets. How much does it cost to run ScotRail a year? How do you go about sorting out the budget? Do you just say, “This is what we need,” and that is what the Government gives you? How does that work? Could you please explain that to me, if you would not mind?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Edward Mountain
I do not think that that comes to £14 million, but there we go.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Edward Mountain
I want to clarify something. Your fares ratchet up fairly quickly as the day of travel gets closer—the cost of a basic berth can suddenly increase from roughly between £120 and £140 to £220 when few spaces are available. Peak fares operate on Caledonian Sleeper’s service.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Edward Mountain
I understand that but, as the day of travel gets closer, your prices for overnight accommodation can double.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Edward Mountain
It is sometimes double.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Edward Mountain
Okay. I have learned from my mistake.
I will bring in Mark Ruskell very briefly to ask one question to one witness.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Edward Mountain
Go on—give us a clue. How much is a carriage?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Edward Mountain
What about a train to pull it? What would the new version of the 125 cost, which I seem to remember having on my railway track when I was a kid?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 March 2024
Edward Mountain
Thank you. I just wanted to get that context. We will go back to Bob Doris’s questions.