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 3405 contributions
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Sue Webber
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support mental health services across NHS Lothian. (S6O-04020)
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Sue Webber
During the past fortnight, we have spent a significant amount of time discussing the topic that Claire Baker has brought to the chamber this afternoon—tackling abuse of bus drivers. We support the calls in the Scottish Labour motion. Unite the union has found that an alarming 84 per cent of bus drivers have experienced abuse in the past 12 months and that drivers are frequently beaten, spat upon and threatened by teenagers.
Members might recall that, at First Minister’s question time on 14 November, I asked the First Minister to outline what action the Scottish Government is taking to protect drivers and to clamp down on under-22s who abuse their free bus pass by committing antisocial behaviour. Mr Swinney’s response was helpful in that he confirmed that he would explore the point that I had put to him and determine whether any action could be taken. Only yesterday, the cabinet secretary wrote to me advising of the commitment to addressing that pressing issue, and findings and recommendations are expected by the end of the year. The need for that to be a priority is clear.
Next week, as we have already heard, I, Claire Baker and Mark Ruskell will host a round-table meeting in Parliament about the safety of bus drivers. I am glad to hear that the minister, Mr Fairlie, will also be in attendance. We will discuss the growing level of abuse towards bus drivers and how it can be tackled. A variety of stakeholders will attend, including Unite the union, FirstBus, Young Scot, Police Scotland and the Confederation of Passenger Transport. We have also heard that, on 14 December 2023, my colleague Graeme Simpson held a members’ business debate to discuss reports of antisocial behaviours on buses.
I want to go into some detail about the card curfews and confiscations that the Scottish Conservatives have been calling for.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Sue Webber
Will the member take an intervention?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Sue Webber
Veterans First Point—V1P—Lothian is a vital service that supports veterans with their mental health and wellbeing. On 28 October, following NHS Lothian’s decision to withdraw its joint funding of the service, all new referrals to V1P were paused and the service faces an uncertain future. What discussions has the Scottish Government had with NHS Lothian about that vital mental health service? Will the minister provide me with an update on the future of V1P Lothian?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Sue Webber
We all would, and it is helpful that it appears to be the case that, in the debate this afternoon, we are all in the same place. That acceptance will go a long way, but we cannot let anyone rest on their laurels. I hope that we will manage to keep feet to the fire on this one.
The majority of young people use their concessionary cards responsibly. We know how valuable young people find those cards in getting to school, college, work and their leisure activities. It is a real pity that the minority of young people are spoiling it for everyone. The curfews that we are calling for would impact only the young people who have abused their privilege and would limit the hours in which they can use their travel pass. It is still imperative that those youths are able to access their education, after all. However, in extreme cases, there should be scope to remove the privilege permanently. My colleague will go into some of the breadth and depth of what that might look like.
The Green amendment that Mr Ruskell lodged is not one that we can support. It would remove all reference to the under-22 concessionary bus pass. We know from recent Scottish transport statistics that 95 per cent of buses have CCTV, so it should not be an impossible task to catch the perpetrators. However, there is direct evidence that the number of assaults on bus drivers has surged since under-22s were given the free bus pass and travel back in January 2022.
Here in the Lothian region, we are fortunate to have an award-winning bus service, but drivers and passengers are increasingly facing soaring numbers of incidents of antisocial behaviour. Since the introduction of the free bus travel scheme in January 2022, ASB has increased by almost 170 per cent on Lothian buses. From January 2022, when the scheme was introduced, to October 2024, 5,817 incidents were recorded on Lothian buses, which is an increase of 168 from the period between 2019 and 2021. To put that in context, in 2019 there were 473 incidents on Lothian buses. In 2023, that jumped to 2,581, which is an increase of 446 per cent.
As we know, it is not a Lothian-specific issue. There have been serious and tragic incidents, such as that involving Keith Rollinson, who lost his life in February 2024. The time to take action is now. We can no longer find reasons not to tackle the issue head on.
16:28Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 27 November 2024
Sue Webber
Will the member take an intervention?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 26 November 2024
Sue Webber
This weekend, storm Bert caused chaos across Scotland, with ScotRail and Caledonian MacBrayne both announcing cancellations, while motorists were stranded and the Queensferry crossing was closed. One of my constituents, who was stuck on the M8 for hours, said that it was only after two hours that he saw a police car, that people were cutting into the hard shoulder and that the situation was dangerous for emergency vehicles.
The impact of the storm was severe but not unexpected. As is now well established, people will still travel despite the issuing of weather warnings, and it seems that the authorities had no idea how they all got caught out. What actions is the cabinet secretary taking to future proof our transport network for extreme weather events?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 26 November 2024
Sue Webber
I thank the cabinet secretary for that detailed answer. Fostering resilience is essential to ensuring that Scotland is protected for future extreme weather events.
When the snow hit on Saturday, Edinburgh city centre was gridlocked, with buses cancelled and drivers left stranded, and no gritters in sight. What makes it worse is that Transport Scotland has spent nothing on road grit for the past three financial years, despite the cabinet secretary saying that there is more grit in stock than was used in the entirety of last winter.
Roads must be properly protected against these icy conditions, which are all too familiar to those who travel on roads in Scotland. Transport Scotland says that there are adequate levels of grit, but there is no point in having stockpiles of grit if it is not going to be used. That is cold comfort for the people who were stranded as a result of the closures that affected our major trunk roads. Does the cabinet secretary accept that that looks like another example of where the Scottish National Party Government has failed to deliver value for taxpayers, which left motorists stranded as the weather hit?
Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]
Meeting date: 14 November 2024
Sue Webber
Unite the union has found that 84 per cent of bus drivers have experienced abuse in the past 12 months, with drivers frequently being beaten, spat on or threatened by teenagers. A growing number of young people feel that such shocking behaviour is acceptable. There must be stronger measures in place to protect our bus drivers. What action is the First Minister taking to protect drivers and to clamp down on the under-22s who abuse their free bus pass by committing antisocial behaviour?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 13 November 2024
Sue Webber
This comes back to the longevity of the petition. You might remember the furore and activity that surrounded Callum Isted’s first appearance at the committee. The First Minister at the time made significant promises. To keep his hopes up, he is a very determined campaigner. Whatever the outcome of the committee’s decision, I know that Callum will still be fighting long and hard for environmental issues that are close to his heart. He continues to campaign for a variety of things locally and, as I said, he is a very determined young lad. I am proud of everything that he has done to bring the issue to the attention of the committee.
We need to challenge each of our decisions on how we interact with and take forward sustainable goals, and Callum determined that his proposal would be a quick win, albeit that it might have had cost implications. It is disappointing that only 13 local authorities have expressed an interest in the proposal, but I am sure that Callum will carry on campaigning.
The convener noted that there have been two First Ministers since Ms Sturgeon was First Minister. She promised Callum a visit to Bute house. Given that that promise has never been honoured, I wonder whether the committee might ask the current First Minister if he would extend such an invitation to Callum.