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 836 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 26 June 2025
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Were other models considered? For example, you are already importing assembly parts—I am not advocating for that; I am playing devil’s advocate, as that is where some other businesses have gone.
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 26 June 2025
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I suppose that what I am looking for in answer to my questions is whether the model of reducing capacity, making fewer buses and being able to compete on certain contracts—when your competitors in other countries are perhaps mass-producing or producing at a far higher rate, and are therefore able to take some of those hits—is sustainable.
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 26 June 2025
Jamie Halcro Johnston
It would be great if you could do that. In response to Daniel’s—and, I think, Michelle’s—questions, you talked about baking that aspect into the decision. How much have you baked in? Have you basically considered returning the full amount?
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 26 June 2025
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I am coming to that. My questions are all about sustainability and how we can produce buses in this country with competition that seems only to be growing. I want to get some kind of clarity on that. I think that you talked earlier about the UK demand for buses. What is the Scottish demand? I appreciate that it might change, but what is your market share of the annual Scottish demand for buses on average?
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 26 June 2025
Jamie Halcro Johnston
I recognise that. If there is that gap there, is it widening?
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 26 June 2025
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Okay. When you win contracts, however—because you obviously are winning contracts from transport companies—what are you winning them on? You are winning those deals, so why are they choosing you over what we probably accept is a cheaper alternative from abroad? That point is obviously so important.
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 26 June 2025
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Okay. I still have a few questions. How much of your supply chain and components for buses currently come from China? Do you import a significant amount?
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 26 June 2025
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Okay. Feasibility-wise, you could still be having such conversations next year, but any processes ahead of that point would need to be expedited, which would, to some extent, require a company to be identified first. In your experience, how many companies or customers do you have that can work on such an expedited process without large incentives from the Government or other sources?
09:45Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 26 June 2025
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Without Government intervention.
Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 26 June 2025
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Okay. Thank you.