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 876 contributions
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 4 October 2023
Foysol Choudhury
Data protection and privacy could be affected as well. We see quite a lot of stuff online. People post footage of cyclists and people in private cars. What measures will the police or the law take to protect them?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Foysol Choudhury
Scottish Labour believes that the interests of the people of Scotland are best served when both the Scottish and UK Governments work together in co-operation. The Scottish Government has continually made relations with the UK Government strained, instead of finding consensus. When the two Governments cannot reach agreement on anything, the people of Scotland are the ones who suffer.
With regard to the internal market act, the two Governments must seek to work together. The UK Government must find a better way to regulate the market, which does not undermine devolution. [Interruption.]
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Foysol Choudhury
I want to make some progress.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Foysol Choudhury
Labour is the party of devolution. We legislated for and enacted it and we will continue to advocate for and protect it when we are next in government. The UK Conservative Government continues to undermine devolution. As many members have outlined, over the past five years, it has repeatedly undermined and discarded the Sewel convention.
Unfortunately, the UK Government’s internal market act is no different. As the minister rightly outlined in his opening speech, that was made abundantly clear when, although the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd withheld consent, the UK Government went ahead and passed the act regardless.
As Willie Rennie pointed out, this debate is about respecting the Scottish Parliament’s authority. As Neil Bibby outlined, the powers of devolution were established in 1998 by the then UK Labour Government. The internal market act tramples on devolution. It undermines the Scottish Parliament’s authority and allows the lowest regulatory standard under one Administration to be the rule for all. It provides the potential for UK ministers to ignore or override legislation in devolved areas in Scotland, but decisions on devolved policies should be made in Scotland.
Donald Cameron was right to say that the Scottish Parliament is one of the most powerful devolved legislatures in the world, yet the UK Government continues to seek to undermine and roll back this Parliament’s powers. The internal market act does just that.
The UK Government must develop a better way to maintain common standards and safeguards—a way that does not undermine devolution in Scotland or any democratic decisions across all the devolved legislatures in the UK. As Keith Brown mentioned, that approach must not try to strike down powers from the Scottish Parliament, which more than 70 per cent of the electorate voted for in 1997.
As part of the party of devolution, Scottish Labour seeks to further strengthen devolution—not to undermine or weaken it. Scottish Labour would like Scotland to be strengthened as part of a modern and changed United Kingdom.
As my colleague Martin Whitfield outlined, we would like power in Scotland to be based as near as possible to the place in which it is exercised. We would like power to be restored to the hands of local authorities and communities. That is why the next UK Government will transform Westminster and abolish the outdated House of Lords. It will transfer power out of Westminster and into local authorities, so that regions can better control the issues that impact them most.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Foysol Choudhury
Yes. A rule that allows for the lowest regularity standard in one Parliament to be the standard of all disregards devolution and the authority of other legislative bodies across the board.
Scottish Labour is focused on strengthening devolution and on being the change that Scotland needs: a fresh start.
16:41Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 3 October 2023
Foysol Choudhury
I think that my colleagues have answered that question. That is something for the incoming Labour Government to look at.
Scottish Labour is focused on protecting devolution. However, instead of strengthening devolution, the Scottish Government is doubling down on the politics of division. Many of my colleagues in the chamber today have outlined that Scotland needs two mature Governments that will work together.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Foysol Choudhury
I have previously raised the issue of sewage contamination in Scotland’s water, notably in the Water of Leith in my region, and have asked the Scottish Government for a meeting. In August, the cabinet secretary advised me that she did not think that a meeting would be useful. Given the clear severity of the issue across Scotland, will the cabinet secretary now agree to meet urgently with me?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 28 September 2023
Foysol Choudhury
Network Rail has previously been open to discussing the potential upgrade of the south suburban line. A train-tram solution would see vehicles running on the south suburban line, then transferring to streets to achieve convenient and more direct access to the city centre. What discussion has the Scottish Government had with Network Rail regarding the train-tram solution? Will it consider running a feasibility study on the proposal?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 21 September 2023
Foysol Choudhury
Schools and local authorities have roles to play in keeping children safe online, but they are struggling with already-stretched budgets. At the same time, Police Scotland is losing police numbers and is having to abandon planned capacity improvements in the force. Does the minister share my concern that the stretched budget of that institution will impact on its ability to keep up with the complexity of the crimes?
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: 20 September 2023
Foysol Choudhury
I am surprised to see that we have only five Scottish students in the years from 2009 to 2022. We should write to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland to find out the exact figure for how many Scottish students have received funding, and whether there is a cap. I know that the conservatoire is saying that there is no cap, but it is surprising that there are only five every year.