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: 30 May 2023
Edward Mountain
I am looking round the table but do not see anyone else who wants to come in.
We have had a wide-ranging discussion, and we have heard quite a bit about Edinburgh, Glasgow, Winchburgh and Aberdeen, but witnesses have failed to talk about Inverness, which is a subject close to my heart. The dualling of the A9 also requires the dualling and double tracking of the railway. That is an idea that we can develop outside this meeting.
Thank you very much for your time. I am sure that we will see you again.
12:10 Meeting continued in private until 12:37.Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Edward Mountain
I call Mark Ruskell.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Edward Mountain
Will you clarify that for me? I am a little confused. In the last year of the franchise, when ScotRail was going to be nationalised, Abellio could make decisions on wages provided that those were approved by the Scottish Government. It could not make a decision without approval from the transport minister, because that was part of the agreement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Edward Mountain
That would require the development of new trains. I remember that, when the 125s or HSTs came up six years ago, you said that they were a great step forward. The new Hitachi trains took quite a long time to develop and come into service. We are now in 2023, so 2030 is seven years away. If the design process and the procurement process started now, would the trains be available by 2030?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Edward Mountain
So if an issue is on track, you go to the minister, and if it is on passenger service delivery, David Lowrie goes to the minister. Is that right? Perhaps I am complicating things; I am trying to see what the pyramid looks like.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Edward Mountain
Good morning and welcome to the 19th meeting of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee in 2023. The first item on the agenda is to decide whether to take in private item 3, which is consideration of the evidence on the railways that we will hear today. Do we agree to take item 3 in private?
Members indicated agreement.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Edward Mountain
I thank all the witnesses for coming this morning. Your passion for the subject has been clear to all. Thank you for your evidence and for explaining to me the complex structure of how the whole system works.
I briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a change of witnesses.
10:42 Meeting suspended.Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Edward Mountain
I very much take that point.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Edward Mountain
Mark Ruskell can ask a short question to one person.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 30 May 2023
Edward Mountain
When Abellio was in charge, there used to be the service quality incentive regime fund, which got lots of money from Abellio in fines. That was used to increase and upgrade infrastructure across the network. Does that fund still exist and do you have to contribute to it? If it does not exist, has the Scottish Government made up the moneys that have been lost from that fund?