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 774 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 6 December 2023
Brian Whittle
Good morning, gentlemen. I declare a lifelong interest in Prestwick airport from the start, given that I used to live in Monkton and I joined the crowds in the football field across from my house to watch the inaugural flight of Concorde in 1969—that is how old I am.
I want to use my time to look at the airport’s income streams beyond flight operation; in particular I am interested in agreements with wind farm developers for mitigation payments. You will be aware of the findings of the reports on Clauchrie and Sanquhar. Having read the reports, it seems that the airport’s approach to negotiating mitigation settlements with wind farms has been challenged in several recent planning inquiries for such developments. From comments made by wind farm developers and reporters, it is reasonable to say that your approach is more aggressive than the norm. In particular, you have sought to receive on-going payments beyond an initial lump sum—you have sought to receive payments based on the number of megawatts generated. Most worryingly, you have taken an approach that uses non-disclosure agreements to conceal the value of payments and prevent public scrutiny. I am taking that straight from the report. Do you feel that that is an accurate description of the approach that you have taken to wind farms?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Brian Whittle
Anna, would you like to add anything?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Brian Whittle
The focus of your answer was very much on penalising those who do not comply, but there is another side to that coin. Should we not be encouraging people to comply? Instead of just a stick, do we not need a stick and a carrot? How do we encourage rather than penalise? I think that that is always a better approach to take, if you can.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Brian Whittle
My questions are for Jocelyn Blériot and Anna Larsson. At the moment, there is a lot of focus in Scotland on single-use items, such as vapes, and we are also looking at the disposal of unsold goods. The bill would give the Scottish Government powers to tackle those issues, but are there any international examples that we should be focusing on and which we could emulate to help us develop more successful legislation? I would ask that, when you answer, you comment, please, on how we can engage with business, as it is so important that we take business with us and ensure that there is no uncertainty about how to do business.
I put that question to Jocelyn first.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Brian Whittle
It was about charges for single-use products and whether we should adopt that idea.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Brian Whittle
Thank you very much.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Brian Whittle
I am going to try to dip my toe into the murky waters of the difference between devolved and reserved areas and how they could interact with the bill. I want to avoid some of the troubles that we have had in the past in developing policy in this area. I assume that my questions are for Aileen and Feja, but if I am wrong in that, please tell me.
As you said, there is a real complexity around the interactions. Although waste is a devolved policy area, it will inevitably interact with UK reserved areas, such as EPR and, as we saw recently, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 has also raised its head. I will ask a few questions about the key challenges in navigating that complex environment, especially because, as we heard earlier, divergence in policy is not necessarily a bad thing, in that one devolved nation can lead another by highlighting good practice. How do we use the common frameworks to support that policy coherence?
We have recent experience of the internal market act and its effect on the deposit return scheme and the single-use plastics ban. How do we utilise those opportunities and avoid some of the—to use a technical term—bun fighting that took place recently?
I will ask Feja to answer first. If I am going to the wrong people here, please let me know.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 28 November 2023
Brian Whittle
I commend my colleague Bob Doris for trying to keep politics out of this, but I am going to throw it back in again. Is the problem not that the relationship between the two Governments has never been worse, and that the lack of collaboration and the intransigence towards each other are complicating the way in which we are trying to develop the bill?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Brian Whittle
I thought that SNIB funded £5 million and up, and that Scottish Enterprise funded £1 million to £5 million.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 22 November 2023
Brian Whittle
Good morning. I will be brief. I will ask my question in two parts. The first part is to Jordan Jack and the second is to Mike Duncan.
The Scottish Government has a target of reducing car mileage by 20 per cent by 2030. I am interested in the impact. Currently, we are trying to prevent cars from coming into city centres. I had my own experience of that in Aberdeen a couple of weeks ago, as I tried to navigate my way around, having not been there for a while. First, I wonder whether our public transport system has the capability to pick up the slack, if you like, of people travelling into and out of our city centres for purchases or for work. Secondly, what will be the impact on our city centres of preventing people from coming in and out by car for work and to shop when it comes to recruitment and retention and turnover for businesses? Jordan Jack, is the north-east set up to take up a reduction in cars?