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 5056 contributions
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Ariane Burgess
We heard, maybe in our visit sessions, that the reluctance might not be just because something is not paid for, but because of the unknown level of upheaval that comes into an owner’s life.
Willie Coffey, I am going to bring you in with your question. Chris Ashurst has just indicated that he wants to come in, but on stuff that is already in the mix. If you could come in with your first question, Willie, we will then see where we go.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Ariane Burgess
Thanks very much for that. I will bring in Alan Millar and Perry Jenkins, but before I do so, I ask Marie McNair to ask her final question, and people can add in their responses to that, too. We have now gone over the hour, so we will need succinct answers.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Ariane Burgess
I say once again that we are over time, so responses should be succinct. I call Alan Millar and Perry Jenkins, and if anyone else has anything new and different to drop into the conversation that we have not heard yet, it would be great to hear it.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Ariane Burgess
On our second panel today, we are joined in the room by Stephen Andrew, who is the group technical director at Taylor Wimpey plc; Fionna Kell, who is the director of policy for Homes for Scotland; John Low, who is the chief executive at Robertson Homes Ltd; and Kieran Walker, who is the senior technical director at Barratt Developments plc. We are joined online by Julie Jackson, who is general counsel and company director at Miller Homes Ltd.
As with the first panel, I will begin our conversation by inviting everyone to briefly introduce themselves. I am a Highlands and Islands MSP and the convener of the committee.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Ariane Burgess
Stephanie Callaghan, who joins us online, has a couple of questions.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Ariane Burgess
The idea of separating out the issues is an interesting one. Stephen Andrew wants to come in.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Ariane Burgess
That is a good point. I will just pop this in. We have heard the idea that, because all buildings need some kind of MOT, we should have a register so that everyone understands what buildings are made of and so on. Do you think that it would be useful to take that approach in Scotland?
11:15Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 January 2024
Ariane Burgess
Not to do with this bill but going forward, do we need to be clear in Scotland about that line of responsibility and the handover moment?
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 17 January 2024
Ariane Burgess
Given the significance of the carbon-neutral islands project for Scotland’s net zero ambitions, I am interested to hear about the thinking behind the reductions in the budget from last year to this year.
Having met some of the amazing young development officers, I can see how important their roles are and the challenges that they face because of the one-year funding cycles. I had a conversation with one of the officers, who described the situation as not being sustainable for them because they are making major life considerations, but they are not sure if they will be employed. It is important that we are clear with those people, who are doing incredible work on amazing projects, what the future will be for them.
Rural Affairs and Islands Committee
Meeting date: 17 January 2024
Ariane Burgess
I want to ask about the agricultural transformation fund, which has received a further cut and has now been allocated £3 million in resource funding rather than the previous £5 million in capital funding. I am interested in understanding the reason for the reduction, the thinking behind moving the funding from capital to resource and what it will be spent on.