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 680 contributions
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Edward Mountain
I always think that it is good to listen to an argument as it develops rather than jump in at the outset. I have tried to explain to you on numerous occasions why it is important to look at different fuels instead of focusing blandly on energy performance certificates when it comes to housing insulation. You did not listen to me then, so I hope that you will listen to me now.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Edward Mountain
I am delighted to speak in this debate on a motion that I broadly agree with. That does not always happen in a Government debate. Before I talk about it in any great depth, I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests, in which I declare that I have a farming interest. I may talk about fertiliser, and I have an interest in a fishery on the River Spey that may be affected by a hydrogen plant. I have made that clear at the outset.
I also agree with the Labour amendment. I have been enthralled in the debate by Daniel Johnson, Brian Whittle and one or two others quoting physics and chemistry. I now remember why I did not do those subjects at school and did others instead.
I support most of the Green amendment, until it gets to the bit about heating, then I lose the thread, so I cannot support it. Frankly, I think that the Greens’ amendment is disappointing and shows a lack of vision.
Let us be clear: I have had to brush up my knowledge of hydrogen, but I know from my experience on the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee that about 40 to 45 per cent of electricity is lost when producing hydrogen and that about another 10 per cent of power is lost when hydrogen is turned back into electricity. A huge amount of power is lost in the process, which means that it is quite an expensive way of producing electricity. I have also found out that 9 litres of water are required to produce 1 litre of hydrogen. The process uses quite a lot of that resource, which I will return to in a minute.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Edward Mountain
Not imminently, then.
In the Highlands, we have a situation in which the health board has a neurodevelopment assessment waiting list of 1,958 young children—four times greater than it was three years ago. NHS Highland says that some children will have to wait in excess of five years even to get an assessment, and that it will take some 15 years to fully clear the existing waiting list. Does the First Minister consider it acceptable that some children will go through their entire school career waiting for an assessment, or that parents will have to fund private care to ensure that their children get the most from their schooling?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 1 May 2025
Edward Mountain
I will in a minute, Mr Harvie. I just want to make a point.
The production of hydrogen has costs for the environment as well as for the industry. Therefore, we need to send the industry clear signals about the need for hydrogen, which requires us not to talk down all the things that it could be used for.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 30 April 2025
Edward Mountain
Will the member take an intervention?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 30 April 2025
Edward Mountain
Will the minister give way?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 April 2025
Edward Mountain
I thank Marie McNair for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I have spoken about cancer awareness, specifically bowel cancer awareness, in April in previous years, and I have had to mention things that we perhaps do not look at until we see them face to face. I have talked about seeing blood in your poo and the other symptoms, and I think that it is important that we normalise those discussions.
Testicular cancer, which we are talking about tonight, is dangerous. There are 2,500 new cases every year, leading to about 65 deaths each year. Catching it early is the way to deal with it. I am therefore going to try to follow the advice of Kenny Everett, and do this “in the best possible taste”.
On that basis, Deputy Presiding Officer, I will take you on a journey to your local supermarket. If you go to the fruit aisle, specifically the section where you find pears, I ask you to pick up a pear and look at it.
I have to say that, when I was researching this speech, I did not realise that there were quite so many varieties of pears available, from Conference and Concorde pears to Taylor’s Gold and Bartlett pears—in fact, there are some 300 varieties.
When you go to select your pear, you get what you are given on the supermarket shelves. If you pick up a pear and it is misshapen or hard, or if you push it and it causes you pain, you would reject it and do something about it.
That takes me back to the subject that we are talking about tonight, which is testicular cancer. If you find any of those symptoms, you must do something about it. To do nothing is to endanger your life. It might be just those symptoms alone, or there might be other symptoms, such as losing weight, having a cough, having difficulty breathing or a swollen chest, or having a history of testicular cancer in your family, that you are ignoring or do not recognise. However, if you recognise any of them, my strong advice is that you should go straight to the doctor early on and ask to be tested.
My belief is that if we talk normally about testicular cancer—not necessarily by comparing it to a journey to the supermarket, but by talking about the symptoms and raising awareness—we could save lives. It does not matter if only one life is saved—that one life is absolutely vital.
I pay tribute to Cahonas Scotland for its “Check yer bawballs” campaign and to Movember—both charities that are involved in men’s health. I remind everyone that, when it comes to cancer, if you find something at any stage that causes you concern, it will probably cause the doctor concern and it will get checked. If you get it checked, it might be nothing, but if it is something, you could save your life, and that is really important.
17:27Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 April 2025
Edward Mountain
One thing is clear: testicular cancer often runs in a family. Is there any way, therefore, that the minister could direct the health service to alert people who have testicular cancer in their family to carry out the checks on a regular basis? That may be one way of reducing the impact quite quickly and simply.
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 29 April 2025
Edward Mountain
We read that someone with testicular cancer who has surgery to have one testicle removed will not be affected by that. There are also ways of storing semen, should someone have to have both testicles removed. The long-term effect of the surgery is that it keeps the person alive. Does Mr Sweeney agree that we ought to discuss that and make it clear that treatment is better than nothing at all?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 24 April 2025
Edward Mountain
In a minute, Mr Hepburn.
I looked at the names that the committee identified as being given to such bills; they include headline bills, shell bills, enabling bills and framework bills. Those are all great names, and they are used by people to promote the bills for what they are: skeletal bills and jellyfish bills.