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
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Kenneth Gibson
Okay, but let me continue with my question. I was not asking about the spending for which the national insurance levy is being raised, which is for health and social care; I was asking about the impact of the levy on local government, for example, which collectively will have to pay £31 million to the Treasury. I understand that the UK Government has agreed that it will provide—certainly south of the border—the consequentials in that regard. Has that been guaranteed for Scotland, so that some of that £1 billion that you mentioned does not have to be fired back into local government, police and fire services and so on? That is what I was trying to get at; I apologise if I did not explain that clearly.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Kenneth Gibson
Thank you. The second part of my question was about the implications of the national insurance increase for economic and employment growth in Scotland.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Kenneth Gibson
I am sorry; we seem to have lost the cabinet secretary.
Are you back with us, Kate?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Kenneth Gibson
I am tempted to come back on that last comment, but I will move on, because I want to touch on a number of issues so that colleagues can expand on them.
The committee often gets suggestions that local government should be provided with more flexibility to, for example, raise revenue on its own. Indeed, we received such suggestions this year. Has the Scottish Government identified any additional revenue streams that it could adopt or could devolve to local government? Will it encourage local government and other bodies to develop their own revenue streams, given the current financial situation?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Kenneth Gibson
Immigration is a factor, but surely we must do more to upskill the 4 to 5 per cent of the population who are currently unemployed at a time when there is a huge number of vacancies in the economy. I am keen for the Scottish Government to do more to address the issue.
You mentioned gas. The Scottish Government has a national collaborative framework for the supply of natural gas, which means that there has been no increase in the wholesale cost of gas since April 2021 and that there will be no increase during this financial year. First, what is the impact on the Scottish Government likely to be next year? I imagine that the framework will have to be renegotiated in view of prices and that the impact will be significant. Secondly, what impact will there be on the private sector, particularly fuel-intensive industries? I have a number of such industries in my constituency—I am sure that that is the case for other members. What, if anything, can the Scottish Government do to assist with the issue?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Kenneth Gibson
Thank you for that.
We have exhausted our questions. Cabinet secretary, thank you for answering so many questions so comprehensively. I wish you a speedy recovery. I apologise for the broadcasting glitches, which you valiantly managed to get through; we were able to ask the questions that we wanted to ask.
That ends the public part of the meeting.
12:10 Meeting continued in private until 12:19.Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Kenneth Gibson
Obviously, significant multibillion-pound consequentials have been received from the UK Government since the start of the pandemic. How much of that is still available to allocate? Is there any risk of a clawback? Has there been a guarantee of consequentials from the UK health and social care levy and when will they be delivered?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Kenneth Gibson
Good morning and welcome to the seventh meeting in 2021 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee.
For agenda item 1, we will take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy in what is our final pre-budget scrutiny session. Unfortunately, the cabinet secretary is unable to be with us in person as she recently tested positive for Covid-19. I hope that she is recovering well and that she has not been too badly affected by the virus. Members will have received a paper from the clerks along with private briefings from our budget adviser and the Scottish Parliament information centre’s financial scrutiny unit.
I welcome to the meeting Kate Forbes, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy, who is joined by the following Scottish Government officials: Douglas McLaren, deputy director, budget, pay and pensions; and Claire McManus, fiscal framework team leader. I intend to allow 90 minutes for the session.
Before I open it up to questions from the committee, I invite Ms Forbes to make a short opening statement.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Kenneth Gibson
I have a couple more questions before we open out to other members of the committee.
What was the level of engagement with the UK Government prior to its announcement that it will set out a multiyear spending review, given the impact that that will have on Scotland’s finances?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 5 October 2021
Kenneth Gibson
I was pleased that you invited me, the deputy convener and the convener of the Social Justice and Social Security Committee to a meeting last week to discuss issues with the fiscal framework. I have one question about that. The fiscal framework has helped us through Covid-19 and the early months of Brexit, but what weaknesses have been identified in the framework and how can it be improved and made more flexible? What engagement has there been with the UK Government on the scope of the review and when it will commence?
