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 2389 contributions
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Mark Ruskell
So there are no other farming unions across Europe that have successfully challenged regulation on the basis of private property rights?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Mark Ruskell
I was just drawing on your comments at the beginning of the session, when you seemed to imply that you were leaning towards larger landowners, but maybe not.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Mark Ruskell
Would it come down to guidance, then? Would the detail of the guidance determine whether the approach was too prescriptive or not prescriptive enough?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Mark Ruskell
I know that there was discussion with the previous UK Government about the introduction of a carbon tax. That was an option at one point, although I am not sure whether it was intended to run alongside an ETS or as a replacement of an ETS.
It would be useful to get your thoughts on whether a carbon tax is now off the agenda and whether everything is now completely focused on an ETS.
I note that Norway also has an ETS—presumably aligned with that of the European Union—but that it also has a carbon tax on both its oil and gas sector and the production emissions from oil and gas. The fact that it has an ETS and a carbon tax means that the industry makes a significant contribution to the Norwegian state.
I am interested in where the discussion is. Is a carbon tax on or off the agenda? Are we simply considering this instrument as the main way to decarbonise?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Mark Ruskell
I will come to the other witnesses later, but do you have any evidence of how the public interest regulations that put more regulation on land and land ownership have been successfully challenged across Europe?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Mark Ruskell
Thanks for that. Did you want to comment, David?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Mark Ruskell
I want to go back to the issue of community consultation on land management. When I was looking at the evidence, I saw NFUS’s comment about
“informal practices that have taken place for generations”
in rural communities. I feel that that sort of thing is probably a bit patchy, having lived in rural areas most of my life. It is probably the case that some good and some not-so-good things happen. To what extent do you believe that voluntary engagement with communities is strong enough to effectively obviate the need for a statutory requirement in the bill? I am interested in your thoughts on that. The convener has already alluded to our visit to highland Perthshire, where we saw some pretty good practice, but we have also heard about some less-than-good practice, some very disengaged landowners and frustrated communities.
Shall we go back round again, kicking off with Sarah-Jane Laing?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Mark Ruskell
If land ownership in Scotland is more concentrated, an intervention will impact a much smaller number of people than, say, an intervention in Denmark, which would impact a much greater number of people. If a small number of people would be affected, what weighting is that given when considering the impact on the private property interest?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 19 November 2024
Mark Ruskell
That would be useful. David, do you have anything to add?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Meeting date: 12 November 2024
Mark Ruskell
I see that Michael McLeod wants to come in.