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 893 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2021/22”
Meeting date: 11 May 2023
Craig Hoy
It is not necessarily linked to someone’s primary residence in that respect. Is that correct?
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2021/22”
Meeting date: 11 May 2023
Craig Hoy
Good morning. In recent years, the main concern in Scotland has been the different tax thresholds, but we are now getting different rates potentially impacting behavioural patterns. I want to quickly put some scenarios to you to make sure that my thoughts are correct and perhaps to assist anybody who is watching. Am I correct in thinking that, if somebody lives in Berwick-upon-Tweed but works in Edinburgh—commuting into Scotland to do their job—they would not require an S tax code?
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2021/22”
Meeting date: 11 May 2023
Craig Hoy
If someone was living in Berwick and working remotely for a Scottish company, it would be entirely applicable for them to have a UK tax code.
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2021/22”
Meeting date: 11 May 2023
Craig Hoy
The overall Scottish tax base relies heavily on a very small number of upper-rate taxpayers. It would not take too many of those high-end payers to significantly distort the overall tax take. To what extent should that be on ministers’ radar? I am thinking both of behavioural change and of the impact of inward and outward migration—of fewer people coming here or of more higher-rate taxpayers leaving—if that differential becomes significant. Are ministers alert to the potential double risks that might have an impact on the upper-rate tax take in Scotland?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Craig Hoy
That is fine. We have talked about financial sustainability in the NHS, and you have identified reform and innovation as being critical to the long-term sustainability of the NHS in Scotland. Clearly, there was the meeting at which there was blue-sky thinking. At some point, we need to engage the public on what healthcare will look like in Scotland over the next five, 10, 15, 25 and 50 years and the timetable for that. How do you intend to engage with the nation and have that conversation about our national health service?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Craig Hoy
Okay.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Craig Hoy
We know, from recently released data, that there has been a 73 per cent increase in the number of Scots electing to go private for some treatments. What would you, as NHS Scotland chief executive, advise me to do if I was 80 and in pain, immobile and suffering from social isolation because I required a hip replacement and I had the means to pay for it?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Craig Hoy
The SFC estimates that projected spending on health in Scotland will rise from a third of all spend to 50 per cent within 50 years. Do you recognise that figure? What conversations are you having with ministers about the model of healthcare in Scotland, given that projected shift in spending?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Craig Hoy
Good morning, Ms Lamb. The Scottish Fiscal Commission’s fiscal sustainability report that came out last month raised serious concerns about future financial pressures on the NHS in Scotland. It identified that those pressures are due not only to an ageing population but to rises in chronic health conditions and the technological advances that are moving us forward. What are you and the NHS in Scotland doing to plan for those future financial pressures to ensure that Scotland’s NHS is financially sustainable?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “NHS in Scotland 2022”
Meeting date: 4 May 2023
Craig Hoy
That is a long-term sustainability issue. In relation to the shorter term, the leaked draft minutes of a meeting of NHS board chiefs in September last year identified a potential £1 billion black hole in the finances of the NHS in Scotland. The minutes of that meeting of NHS bosses stated that they had almost been given the green light to think the unthinkable about the foundations of the NHS in Scotland, with the wealthy potentially paying for their treatment in a two-tier NHS. Is that the kind of discussion that is taking place in NHS Scotland?
