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 1101 contributions
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 6 February 2024
Paul McLennan
Again, it is about learning lessons. Down south, the UK Government has gone through the same process. There will be SMEs at certain levels. We all know where the threshold sits for SMEs, but where do the different SMEs sit within that? It is important to have the broader discussions with Homes for Scotland and SMEs, but we also need individual discussions to learn what it looks like for different SMEs. That is an important part of getting to the nuanced position as we learn from the pilot programme and go forward.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 6 February 2024
Paul McLennan
There are a number of things to say on that. It is very much demand led, which is one of the key points that we are considering. There is a discussion about what the programme will look like in the next year or so. In the past number of months, the spend on it has increased as we have done more work on the matter, and it is important to do that.
The figure for 2024-25 is £41.3 million. As I said, it is very much demand led. That cost is not just remediation; there are other costs involved as well. That is the figure that has been set aside in that regard at the moment. As I say, it is very much demand led. Hopefully, if we quicken the pace, we will see where that leads us in 2024-25. It is a substantial increase on previous years, as we get more into the programme.
10:45Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 6 February 2024
Paul McLennan
That has been a frustration of the process. In November or December, I chaired an interministerial group meeting. It is a reserved matter, so we discussed it with UK Finance. The Welsh Government, which I had previously met, had the same concerns at that time. Officials have raised the issue on a number of occasions, and I have raised it on a number of occasions with my opposite number, including in the ministerial group.
One of the key things that we asked for, which is in the process of being arranged, is a working group with officials to progress matters. In the discussions that we had, the United Kingdom Government said that, with regard to regulations, it was focusing its approach first on England, and that it hoped to roll that out to the devolved Administrations. We needed to see a quickening of the pace. We got an undertaking that that would happen, but, as I said, that is not within our control because we are talking about a reserved matter.
We are aware of the issue, which has been raised by residents on a number of occasions. Discussions are on-going with officials in an effort to get to a solution, not only for the UK Government but for us, the Welsh Government and—now that it has been reformed—the Northern Ireland Executive, although it is just starting the process.
The pace at the moment is frustrating. It is outwith our control, but we continue to push the matter whenever we meet ministers or officials. Rachel Sunderland or Kate Hall might want to mention some of the discussions that they have had in the past few weeks.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 6 February 2024
Paul McLennan
I have not done so myself, but colleagues have. There is obviously an element of technical knowledge required, of which I have a little, but discussions involving actual technical fire safety knowledge have been held and fed back to me. Kate Hall or Rachel Sunderland might want to come in on this, but I can say that there have been extensive discussions with that sector.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 6 February 2024
Paul McLennan
I will bring in officials on that question, too.
There have been a number of cases. With regard to some of the developers that we have spoken to, there are different ownership models. There are historical developments. How has a company developed from where it was 30 years ago to where it is now? That becomes difficult. When it comes to individual discussions, where is the proof of liability? That becomes hard. I know that there have been discussions about design standards, which were probably okay at the time, but where do they come in now? It is about when a building was designed as opposed to when it was built. We are looking at the past 30 years. Some buildings will just be at that 30-year level.
I know that that issue has been discussed, but the question of who takes the action becomes really difficult. Should that be the companies or the Government? That becomes really difficult legally. I do not know whether Micheila West wants to come in on that. I will bring in Rachel Sunderland and Kate Hall on the discussions and Micheila West on legal things that have been discussed.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 6 February 2024
Paul McLennan
That is a good point. The SBA process in relation to the remediation contract is really important. That process is almost a dual process. As well as discussing the SBA process, discussions are already going on about remediation and how that SBA process feeds through to the remediation contracts, for example.
When we looked at that, we were doing so almost in terms of the different waves of the programme, focusing on the larger companies first. I have also been having discussions with SMEs on that. One of the statements that I made at the start was about that individual approach. We know that SMEs are in a difficult position in relation to house building at the moment, so there is a balance in how we discuss this with SMEs to make sure that it does not put their business at risk in what is a difficult trading situation across the UK at the moment.
Discussions are being held at SME level on the SBA process and the remediation contracts. For SMEs, knowing about their ability to pay is really important, so there are discussions on how we can look at that. Those discussions involve not just SMEs as a sector but individual companies. The discussions with individual companies have been helpful—I know that they have appreciated that, because we have had feedback directly from them on that approach.
When we started the process with Homes for Scotland, we made it clear that the SME sector is important and that we were not taking a one-size-fits-all approach. It was very much about looking at the sector. We need to be more cautious in how we deal with the SME sector as a whole, but we also know that their individual circumstances are all different. We have tried to get a balance in how we proceed with them.
The approach to UK public limited companies and the larger Scottish house builders will be different from the approach to SMEs. We need to be cognisant of that, and we are working closely with SMEs. We will have continuing discussions with them on the SBA process and how that moves towards a remediation contract. As I said, I know that that has been appreciated, because we have had direct feedback on that.
I do not know whether Kate Hall or Rachel Sunderland wants to add anything.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 6 February 2024
Paul McLennan
On that point, Mr Coffey, it is important that developers engage on future standards. Are they reviewing their own processes? I would not say as much as that, but in relation to other buildings that come forward, more care is probably taken. We know that they are aware of the on-going maintenance of the buildings; it is not just a case of coming in and replacing cladding. Developers are aware of that issue, going forward.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 6 February 2024
Paul McLennan
I will bring in Kate and Rachel on that point. That issue has been raised by developers. We talked about what the SBA process looks like, when the entry goes on the register and by when we should ensure that the work has been carried out. That has been picked up by residents. Part of the issue in the bill is that you could, hypothetically, get a developer to sign a developer commitment letter or a contract, but one of the key points is that, if a company does not carry out the work, there must be sanctions available to us that might result in the developer not being able to develop in Scotland. That is the ultimate sanction, although I do not think that we would get to that point.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 6 February 2024
Paul McLennan
On that point, I have been at meetings at the ministerial level, and officials regularly have discussions with UK Government and Welsh Government colleagues. We have also already had the Northern Ireland Executive—which has obviously just been reformed—speak to us about what lessons it needs to learn from that. It is very much a four-Governments approach and process in relation to that learning. There are discussions going on all the time about lessons from the UK Government and Welsh Government in relation to what we need to do. It is also raised in the ministerial Government meetings that we have.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 6 February 2024
Paul McLennan
That will be subject to the budget process that we are going through just now. Sorry, I did not pick up the first point in your question.