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 1169 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Tom Arthur
As I said, I am happy to take that away. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we have a long-standing position on landfill tax, which is consistent with that of the other Administrations in the UK. Our policy objective is to ban biodegradable municipal waste going to landfill at the end of 2025. We are seeing the forecasted reductions in revenue; the direction of travel is consistent with meeting that ambition.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Tom Arthur
As Scott Mackay touched on—and if memory serves me correct, he has referenced this in the guide that we provided to the committee—in the scenario where, through the way in which the UK cycle of fiscal events operates, supplementary estimates are only being confirmed at the end of February, scenarios and situations can arise where we receive funding that has not been anticipated, so we have to manage that funding now. We still have to complete this financial year but any funding that is not allocated and spent within this year would be carried forward to support the position in 2024-25. Broadly speaking, we have consistently been able to ensure that any discretionary funding that we receive is spent in-year, and if it is not spent in-year it is carried forward. We have not lost any discretionary spend as a consequence of late consequentials. That speaks to the important role that the Scotland reserve plays in allowing that flexibility.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Tom Arthur
I think that the environment that we are operating in right now is reflective of the sustained inflation that we have seen, which we touched on earlier. Inflation would probably be regarded as quite high had it not been for the context that we have just emerged from. We set out earlier the reasoning and the rationale as well as the broader capacity challenges in the construction sector. It is reflective of a number of different factors.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Tom Arthur
We have set out the position for 2024-25 but, as we are reflecting on today, the final budget for 2024-25 will be determined by decisions that the UK Government takes. I made reference to the fiscal event tomorrow—I do not know what will be in that—then there will be the process of main estimates and supplementary estimates, and, of course, a general election is anticipated this year. Therefore, a number of factors can impact on the Scottish budget position during a year.
Our position is set out in the budget document. Any changes that materialise during the year as a result of UK Government fiscal events will, of course, be reflected in the normal way through the budget revision process.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Tom Arthur
We will endeavour to provide as much information as we can to reflect the committee’s asks.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 5 March 2024
Tom Arthur
Is that in terms of capital projects?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
Tom Arthur
That is an important question. On the point about enforcement, competence with regard to consumer policies is split—advice and advocacy are devolved, but enforcement is reserved, so we do not have the means to legislate for enforcement around consumer issues.
The question of how individual public bodies interpret and respond to the legislation is important. That is why we have taken an approach that not only focuses on the strategic level but is not overly prescriptive. We recognise that, given the broad and diverse landscape of public bodies, the way in which they will be able to apply, take on board and have regard to the duty will vary depending on the particular functions and duties that they discharge. That is why it is important to provide flexibility for public authorities to “have regard to” the duty in a way that is consistent with their functions and responsibilities.
Reporting will be one of the requirements, but that can be incorporated into the existing reporting that local authorities do—for example, through an annual report. Alongside that, there will be the guidance that is developed by Consumer Scotland. As a non-ministerial office and statutory body, Consumer Scotland has a statutory responsibility to provide coherence and strategic leadership in the consumer landscape in Scotland. Consumer Scotland, which is directly accountable to the Parliament, has an important role to play in that regard.
In recognition of the limitations on what we can do around enforcement, we want to work constructively in a collaborative process, and Consumer Scotland has an important leadership role to play in that respect. Nevertheless, we recognise that the way in which public bodies “have regard to” the duty will vary between bodies, reflecting their specific duties and functions.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
Tom Arthur
Is that with regard to—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
Tom Arthur
Yes.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 February 2024
Tom Arthur
Given the role of Transport Scotland and local authorities as delivery partners, they would, in their work and strategic decision making, have to have regard to the consumer duty. In effect, it avoids duplication.
