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.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
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.
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.
There are two types of keyword search:
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.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
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:
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.
Displaying 1489 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
Good morning. First, I must disclose, as per my entry in the register of members’ interests, that I own some buy-to-let property and that I was previously a member of SAL, but I have not been for some years.
The convener has asked a lot of the questions that I might have asked. However, I want to explore a bit more your thinking about the market.
As a statement of intent, I am not uncomfortable with the Scottish Government raising revenue through taxation or with a longer trend of diminishing the private rented sector to private landlords and increasing social housing. That is not an issue for me. I am interested in exploring what your calculations are on the long-term effect in the market and in the round triggered by the ADS. As we have already explored, that falls into LBTT. Can you talk me through your risk assessment of the policy change, what you see as the risks, to whom they apply, and the impact when they occur? I want to understand a bit more how you make policy decisions beyond deciding to raise revenue, which I entirely appreciate.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
You make my point for me: the policy cannot be seen in isolation. I am trying to explore your consideration of the housing market, in which, for a variety of reasons, the supply of properties to rent might well be diminished. There is anecdotal evidence of that already happening; indeed, Professor Graeme Roy has pointed that out. That is not hitting yet, because income from LBTT is being brought in. However, it cannot be that far down the road before that has an effect on the wider market that will disproportionately affect people who need to rent and continue to rent in respect of rent rises and people exiting the market.
I go back to my original question. Do you undertake a risk assessment of tax changes that is based on setting out what the risk is, the probability of its occurring, and the impact that that will have if it occurs?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
It does have an impact. I am not saying that it is the only thing that does; we have seen a number of malignant activities that have also had an impact. I refer to section 24 of the Finance Act 2015 from Westminster and some of the rent changes. I agreed with the actions that the Scottish Government took, because I recognise the restrictions on its ability to support people at a time of crisis. However, if we look at the issue from the other side of the fence, we see that there is evidence that landlords are starting to leave the market. That will absolutely have an impact on available supply and therefore on rents.
I go back to my point. In respect of the wider market, of which the ADS is only part, can I assume that you do not undertake the type of risk assessment that I have asked about? Can I assume that you do not determine the risk, the probability of its occurring, and the impact on the wider market?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
I will finish off on the point. I appreciate that I am straying into territory that is not yours and that a lot of work is going on in housing, but may I impress on you that, as the issue is being thought about in the Scottish Government, people should look across the piece at a variety of stakeholders and, critically, look at the housing market as a market? I am not saying that I agree with all of this. I am very supportive of what the Scottish Government is trying to achieve, but there has to be an assessment of the behavioural effects and so on. Thus far, I have not been convinced that there is a recognition of that, and I certainly have not seen any data on risk that would support that.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
Yes, convener. In the interests of time, I will be quick.
I thank the witnesses very much for everything that they have said so far.
I want to go back to the focus of the session, which is the outlook for business investment. I want to ask about your perceptions for women in your sector: women-led SMEs, women in renewables generally, and women in the just transition. Given the very fulsome comments about data, can you make it clear whether your comments are merely perceptions, based on anecdotal evidence, and where you do not have the data collectors in place? On the back of that, where would you need to see data collectors in place?
Could Claire Mack lead off on that? In the interests of time, I will just go around the panel.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
What about the question about data, the current status, and how you know whether that is true?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
I sense that Jonny Clark wants to come in on that, given that he was nodding.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
Do Jon O’Sullivan and James Reid have anything to add? I appreciate that it is a vast topic.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
Good morning. Over the course of this discussion, you have teased us a few times about the Ana Stewart review and, like you, I do not want to steal her thunder, because I know that something is coming out soon. Thinking about your role, I am heartened to hear how closely you are working with her, because, while looking at the key areas in preparation for today’s session, I picked up on the fact that there does not seem to be anything specific about actively encouraging female entrepreneurs, which, in my opinion—probably unsurprisingly—is a huge gap. Can you confirm that you see that squarely as part of your role?
Secondly, can you give us a flavour of the themes that you hope to see in relation to female entrepreneurs? What does an ideal Scotland for female entrepreneurs look like?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 11 January 2023
Michelle Thomson
[Inaudible.]