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.
Filter your results Hide all filters
Displaying 3805 contributions
|
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and the Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Kenneth Gibson
I turn to Adam Stachura. Age Scotland’s submission refers to the need for
“long-term investment in preventing ill health and tackling poverty.”
Again, that is focusing on prevention. It goes on to say:
“The Scottish Government should provide more funding to energy efficiency schemes”.
Given that we are deliberating over the budget, how much more do you believe that the Scottish Government should invest in such schemes?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and the Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Kenneth Gibson
There is a slight difference between a CPO and a CSO. With a CSO, you are not buying a property; instead, you are forcing someone to sell it.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and the Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Kenneth Gibson
I have one final question. If additional resources are to be invested in advice services, what is the optimum additional sum that you would seek to provide the maximum benefit? Obviously funds are not unlimited and you will get diminishing returns, so what is a realistic increase in advice services that would bring the most return with regard to the assistance that you provide?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and the Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Kenneth Gibson
My last question is for Kevin Robertson. Compulsory sales orders were a Scottish National Party manifesto commitment in 2016, but it was not delivered in the previous session of Parliament, partly because of the Covid pandemic. I asked a written question about the issue and was referred to a question submitted by Paul Sweeney. When I looked at that, it said that the question had not yet been answered, so that was a body swerve there.
Does the Scottish Property Federation support compulsory sales orders? A lot of high streets and other streets have been blighted by buildings that have been left empty for 15 or 20 years and that have been difficult to get moved on. In the previous session of Parliament, there was cross-party support for the measure.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and the Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Kenneth Gibson
It would help if people could actually speak, for the purposes of the Official Report.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and the Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Kenneth Gibson
We move to our second evidence session on pre-budget scrutiny today. We will hear from Kevin Robertson, who is chair of the Scottish Property Federation, and Joanne Walker, who is technical officer for the Chartered Institute of Taxation and its Low Incomes Tax Reform Group. Joanne is joining us remotely, so once again members should make it clear which witness they would like to respond, and our broadcasting team will turn on their microphones. I will aim to give both witnesses a chance to respond to questions, but if Joanne wishes to respond to a specific point, she should indicate to me by raising her hand and typing R in the chat function on the BlueJeans software package.
I declare an interest as somebody who owns a property and rents it out. I intend to allow around an hour for the session. Members have received copies of both witnesses’ written submissions. Without further ado, I welcome our witnesses to the meeting and start by asking a question of Joanne Walker.
In your submission, you say that you
“do not”
wish to
“put forward suggestions of particular powers for devolution or specific policy proposals.”
Why is that?
Secondly, with regard to the Scottish budget and its taxation policies, do you believe that it conforms to Adam Smith’s principles of fairness, certainty, convenience and efficiency?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and the Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Kenneth Gibson
I touch on a couple of areas that we have not covered so far, the first of which is that wee tax that Michelle Thomson mentioned—the land and buildings transaction tax, which still brings in a few bob. I am intrigued by the difference in the submissions on this point. In his submission, Kevin Robertson says:
“We are particularly concerned about the 10% tax band, and believe that its threshold should be increased to £500,000”.
In her submission, Joanne Walker says:
“following temporary relief from Stamp Duty Land Tax”—
as it is called south of the border, and as it was called here before LBTT came in—
“for first time buyers ... in 2010 – 2012, HMRC undertook an evaluation. It concluded that the majority of the 1 per cent tax relief (0.5-0.7%) was in fact capitalised in higher prices”.
Has there been any assessment of the impact of that with regard to revenue? After all, there is no point in our increasing a threshold to assist the sector if all it means at the end of the day is that prices go up, revenue declines and no one is any better off.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and the Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Kenneth Gibson
My next point is for Joanne Walker. If the UK assigned that money and more money came in—obviously, this is hypothetical because it is not happening yet—that would allow the Scottish Government to reduce rates and make the high street more competitive.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and the Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Kenneth Gibson
Hold on—I will ask all my questions in one, because I want to let members in. I am trying to give everybody one hit.
Secondly, your submission says:
“Fundamentally one of the core issues that must be addressed here, is appropriately resourcing funding to local authority services”.
The issue there is that, unless you mention specifics, the Scottish Government will just say, “Well, we think it is adequately resourced.” We may or may not disagree with that.
I turn to disinvestment. Age Scotland came to a previous iteration of this committee, of which I was also convener, when Callum Chomsky—or Callum Chomczuk, I should say—was in your role. He said that Age Scotland would support an increase in the age at which people get concessionary travel from 60 to 65, although John Swinney did not agree with that at the time. Does Age Scotland still support that view?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2022-23: Public Finances and the Impact of Covid-19
Meeting date: 7 September 2021
Kenneth Gibson
I am sure that other members will want to explore that issue further.
I will move on to Laura Mahon. Alcohol Focus Scotland also provided an excellent submission, which makes one or two suggestions that could be implemented without spending money. An obvious one in relation to prevention is increasing the unit price of alcohol. The submission talks about
“a public health supplement to non-domestic (business) rates, applied to retailers licensed to sell alcohol and linked to volume of sales”
and the
“creation of a new local public health tax that applies a levy to the sale of alcohol in the off trade”.
How do you see such policies being delivered, if they were to be implemented? How much money would they raise? Have you thought through exactly what you mean by “volume of sales”? Would it be 5p for every bottle of spirit or something per meterage? Will you explain how such policies would work, if the Scottish Government decided to take them forward?
