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
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Kenneth Gibson
I have to say that it is all a bit vague. I think that colleagues will want to explore the issue in some depth, because there are no numbers against the £620 million to explain how it comes together.
With regard to your forecasting, how has your thinking evolved since August? Why have there been changes in your judgment over that period? One of the main surprises that came out of the budget was the £190 million reduction in the net tax position, relative to your previous forecast. Will you talk us through how you arrived at that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Kenneth Gibson
If we take the nadir of business rates to 2027, the growth will be 69 per cent. That is why I did not take the nadir: it was from 2022-23 to 2026-27. I discounted what was an unusual year, but there is still a 25 per cent growth in rates, which is quite a lot for the business community to cough up. That is why I was wondering about your view on where that money will come from. Is that increase being driven by inflation? It is at twice the level of growth. Why are you predicting an increase from £2.8 billion to £3.5 billion over that four-year period? It seems quite a big increase in a relatively short period.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Kenneth Gibson
David Eiser, I do not think that you want to make any opening remarks, but you can if you so wish.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Kenneth Gibson
One of the issues that we have with this budget is the plethora of different figures. For example, the Scottish Government is saying one thing about figures and the Scottish Fiscal Commission is saying something slightly different. Of course, the UK Government is probably saying something different again, depending on whether Covid figures are included.
Where do you and the Fraser of Allander Institute stand on the figures that we are dealing with? On page 2 of the budget document, which you have seen, the Scottish Government says:
“In practical terms, between 2021-22 and 2022-23, resource funding is 7.1% less in real terms.”
The key words are “In practical terms”. It goes on to say:
“The equivalent reduction for Scotland’s capital budget grant funding is a 9.7% real terms cut between 2021-22 and 2022-23.”
From the figures that others have presented, the second figure appears to be less controversial. Where do you feel that we are on those figures? Obviously, when we scrutinise the budget, we have to look at the figures and see where we are and what room for manoeuvre the Scottish Government has.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Kenneth Gibson
Is it not the case that the capital budget is declining quite significantly—by about 9.7 per cent in real terms—in the next financial year?
Is one productivity issue not that much of the Scottish budget is demand led? Given our ageing population, we need more care workers and more people in the national health service, and it is harder to increase productivity in those areas. Much of that work is highly people focused and labour intensive. We cannot just decide to reduce the number of people who are seen by a certain doctor, nurse or carer in a shift. It is much more difficult than increasing productivity through technological change in manufacturing, for instance.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Kenneth Gibson
Good morning and welcome to the 14th meeting in 2021 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. Today, with the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body’s agreement, we are meeting in hybrid format due to the timing and nature of our budget scrutiny. Additional mitigations are in place, with fewer people attending the meeting.
The only item on our agenda today is evidence from two panels of witnesses as part of our scrutiny of the Scottish budget for 2022-23. First, we will hear from the Scottish Fiscal Commission, and we will then hear from David Eiser from the Fraser of Allander Institute and Professor Graeme Roy from the University of Glasgow.
Our first panel is from the Scottish Fiscal Commission. We are joined remotely by Dame Susan Rice, chair; John Ireland, chief executive; and Professor Alasdair Smith and Professor Francis Breedon, who are commissioners. We have up to 90 minutes for this discussion. I remind members that our broadcasting team will operate their microphones.
I would now like to hear an opening statement from Dame Susan Rice.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Kenneth Gibson
I thank the Scottish Fiscal Commission for its evidence and for producing such an excellent and detailed report.
That concludes this section of our evidence taking. We will reassemble at 11.37.
11:27 Meeting suspended.11:37 On resuming—
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Kenneth Gibson
For our second panel on the Scottish budget 2022-23, we are joined by David Eiser, senior knowledge exchange fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute, and Professor Graeme Roy, dean of external engagement and professor of economics in the college of social sciences at the University of Glasgow. I welcome you both to the meeting.
I remind members and witnesses that our broadcasting team will operate the microphones. We have up to 90 minutes for this session.
Before I open up the discussion, I ask Professor Roy to start us off with some opening remarks.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Kenneth Gibson
Yes. It is significantly lower than what the OBR and the Bank of England anticipate. I will be interested to follow that and see what happens.
In the weeks ahead, MSPs will no doubt battle over the numbers in the chamber. In your report, you say that, overall,
“the Scottish Budget in 2022-23 is 2.6 per cent lower than in 2021-22”,
or 5.2 per cent allowing for inflation, assuming a deflator of 2.6 per cent.
We have been bombarded with a plethora of figures. For example, the Scottish Government’s budget says:
“In practical terms, between 2021-22 and 2022-23, resource funding is 7.1% less in real terms.”
It goes on to say that
“The equivalent reduction for Scotland’s capital budget grant funding”,
which seems to be a less controversial figure,
“is a 9.7% real terms cut between 2021-22 and 2022-23.”
Why did you come to your conclusions on those figures as distinct from figures that, for example, include Covid spend and predict a real-terms increase in the budget? Will you talk us through the figures?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2022-23
Meeting date: 14 December 2021
Kenneth Gibson
Page 22 of the budget document mentions that poundage is below the rate of inflation for the next year. However, your assessment suggests that non-domestic rates income will increase by 25 per cent from 2022-23 to 2026-27, to more than £3.5 billion, when the economy is expected to grow by about half that amount. What is the reason for that? Is it just inflation, or are there other reasons why you expect that income to grow?
