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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Displaying 4176 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 30 September 2025
Kenneth Gibson
I am tempted to say something, but I will not go on any further. Ross Greer is next.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 30 September 2025
Kenneth Gibson
Scandalous.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 30 September 2025
Kenneth Gibson
Interestingly, the Finance Committee that ran from 2011 to 2016 took evidence from organisations such as Equity, the BBC, Channel 4 and Creative Scotland. However, such organisations do not really respond to calls for evidence from this committee. I think that they just give evidence to the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, which then makes recommendations through its own report. However, there is no reason why we cannot speak to them. We are not all philistines.
Incidentally, in Vilnius, Lithuania, there are, within a few hundred yards of each other, an opera house, a concert hall and a third hall, which is being built as we speak. They clearly see that the arts are an opportunity to boost revenue.
In terms of sharing services, a lot of councils already share payroll, council tax collection and roads management. There is an issue with regard to trading standards. There are 250 fewer trading standards officers than there were a few years ago. One of the issues that local government will continually raise with you is that non-statutory services have been hit really hard in recent years and that the room to manoeuvre is limited.
To finish off, I have a question on taxation, which we have not touched on. Professor David Heald, who has often given evidence to the committee in the past, although not recently, has always railed against the chronic state of the UK tax system, which is anything but progressive. He has often shown us a graph. One thinks of income and taxation as a steady line, but in actual fact it is a bit like the skyline in New York, going up and down. We have to work within that framework. However, we still have anomalies in Scotland whereby—I have mentioned this in previous years—the marginal rate of taxation for someone earning £44,000 a year is higher than for someone earning £51,000 because of the interplay between income tax and national insurance.
The medium-term financial strategy mentions two key measures to ensure a strategic approach to tax: The first is
“to improve the operation and performance of the existing tax system”,
and the second is
“Future tax reform to deliver sustainable and growing tax revenues”.
What improvements to the operation and performance of the existing tax system do you have in mind? What future tax reform will deliver those sustainable and growing tax revenues?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 30 September 2025
Kenneth Gibson
There are 55 million people south of the border, and there has been a net influx to Scotland from the rest of the UK. It is important that those people are of working age. However, some areas, such as aerospace, say that the highest rate of tax in Scotland is a deterrent when it comes to attracting the engineers they would like to attract. Incidentally, in Lithuania, where we were last week, the top rate of tax is 32 per cent, as compared with 48 per cent in Scotland. Not every country in Europe has very high rates of personal taxation.
I think that we have given this morning’s discussion a really good go. Your responses have been very helpful to the committee, and I thank you and your officials for coming along.
Are there any final points that you would like to make to the committee before we wind things up?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 16 September 2025
Kenneth Gibson
I must say that you referenced old technology in your submission, but not new technology.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 16 September 2025
Kenneth Gibson
On the same subject area, you have also said that it is important to
“align economic growth spending to gaps in skill and labour market needs.”
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 16 September 2025
Kenneth Gibson
Lesley Jackson, in your paper, you have expressed concern that
“The Flexible Workforce Development Fund (of which the Open University and colleges were providers) - valued at £10.5 million per year - was discontinued in 2023/24”,
and you have said that
“the Open University alone had to turn away over 1,000 learners”.
You go on to say:
“The Scottish Funding Council’s Upskilling Fund, previously valued at £7million per year, was also discontinued in 2024/25.”
You add that what is required is
“More flexibility within graduate apprenticeships to respond to employer needs.”
Can you touch on some of those issues?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 16 September 2025
Kenneth Gibson
Lesley Jackson, you can come in on that as well if you want.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 16 September 2025
Kenneth Gibson
Sorry, what kind of negative experience?
10:15Finance and Public Administration Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2026-27
Meeting date: 16 September 2025
Kenneth Gibson
Frankly, there is a fear of the unknown in many organisations. They think, “We’re going to have to adopt this, but do we have to do it this week?” or, “What’s the implication going to be for the workforce and the whole structure.” I led the first debate on AI in the Parliament, way back in 2018, and the information that we had then about the impact on employment was completely different from the information now. At that time, the sectors that we were told would be most adversely affected and those that would be boosted were completely different from the scenario now. That issue is still being grappled with.
I will move on to capital investments in a couple of minutes, because a few people mentioned that in their written submissions, but a couple of folk want to come in at the moment.
