Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
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.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
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.
Search by MSP
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.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
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.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
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:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
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.
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Hold on a second, minister. There is no reason why we cannot attract migrants from other parts of the United Kingdom if we have a growing and thriving economy. It is not all about bringing in people from overseas. As I have said before in this committee, there are constituencies in Edinburgh that have 7,000 or 8,000 European Union citizens living and working in them, while my constituency has fewer than 300. That is not because of any difference in migration between Ayrshire and Edinburgh—it is because the economy in Edinburgh is so much stronger. Attracting people from other countries is important, but what about migration of working-age people within the UK? By that, I do not mean folk who retire to Arran, Argyll or Perthshire, but those who come to contribute to the economy.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Some workers might find it easier to move to Saudi Arabia and pay their taxes there if we do not get the highly paid and highly skilled jobs that we are talking about, but let us move on.
I now open up the session to my colleagues around the table. The first person to ask questions will be John Mason, to be followed by Daniel Johnson.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Thanks for that.
Moving on, I note that the framework talks about ensuring that Scotland’s public finances are fiscally sustainable. The issue of fiscal sustainability has certainly drawn the committee’s attention, given the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s forecast that by 2024-25—which will come round a lot sooner than we might think—social security spending will have increased beyond the block grant adjustment by £764 million, and that is even before the Scottish Government has delivered a 6 per cent uplift in benefits. How will the framework try to ensure fiscal sustainability?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Good morning and welcome to the 11th meeting in 2022 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee.
Agenda item 1 is an evidence-taking session on the Scottish Government's “Framework for Tax 2021”. We are joined by Tom Arthur, Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, who is accompanied by Alex Doig, deputy director for tax, Scottish Government. I welcome you both and invite Mr Arthur to make a short opening statement.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Minister, you talked about how tax rich oil workers are as a proportion of the Scottish economy. You also talked about the need for a green transition. What evidence do we have that people are transitioning from the oil and gas industry into green jobs at the same salary levels as they enjoy from working in the North Sea? In terms of taxation, that is critical.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
I would appreciate that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Thank you very much for that very interesting statement. I believe that a lot of questions will emerge from it.
You mentioned two new principles, the first of which was engagement to promote public understanding. In that respect, you talked about the importance of communicating clearly and engaging the public. What form is that engagement and communication taking?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Prior to the devolution of income tax and in the run-up to 2017, there was a lot of discussion about how Scotland would address tax avoidance differently from the United Kingdom Parliament. How has that evolved over the years? I note that one of the new principles is “to minimise tax avoidance”. What has been the Scottish Government’s method—if you want to put it that way—of minimising tax avoidance, and how does it differ from that of the UK?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
My understanding was that the Scottish Government was going to take a principled approach to tax avoidance in contrast to the UK’s position, under which, unless something is specifically addressed in legislation, there is an opportunity for avoidance. In Scotland, these things were not to be set in tablets of stone; the idea was that, if the authorities even perceived that the intention was to avoid tax, they would still be able to collect it. I believe that John Mason was on the committee that deliberated on the matter. Are we not moving forward with that? Was minimising tax avoidance not going to be a significant difference between Scotland and the UK?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Kenneth Gibson
I have to say that the choice of taxes does not fulfil Adam Smith’s four criteria of certainty, proportionality to taxpayers’ ability to pay, convenience and efficiency. I think that aspects of the chosen taxes—especially VAT—are extremely contentious when it comes to who gets what and whether Scotland benefits disproportionately from an assignment. However, that is undoubtedly a discussion for another day.
