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 930 contributions
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Christine Grahame
The Labour Government’s first move—of course, this was not in its manifesto—was to base winter fuel payment on pension credit, knowing that 40 per cent of those who are entitled to pension credit do not claim it. Of course, the Labour Government cut our funding to make the payment here universal.
Does the cabinet secretary agree that Labour should explain and, indeed, apologise to the estimated 929 households in my constituency of Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale that have not claimed pension credit and that will lose that vital support in winters that are incredibly cold and colder than those in London and the home counties, where these decisions are taken?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 3 September 2024
Christine Grahame
On the streets of Southport, there were thugs, racists and all manner of extremists, but there were also people from what we might call “deprived areas” generally raging against the political establishment. Does the 60 per cent turnout at the recent election not tell us that politics is failing, when some choose bricks, not the ballot box, and that the cohesion that Patrick Harvie referred to will be severely tested under increasing austerity?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 25 June 2024
Christine Grahame
I am sure that Edward Mountain would agree that some fly-tipping is done by commercial organisations that are actually run by serious organised crime. It goes beyond fly-tipping a fridge-freezer or a mattress; it is something much more sinister.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 20 June 2024
Christine Grahame
I am sure that the minister will welcome the progress on two new-build secondary schools in my constituency—Peebles high and Gala academy—which are due to be completed next year and are funded by the Scottish Government.
Does the minister agree that it is a massive burden on Scottish Borders Council’s budget that Borders secondary schools were built under public-private partnerships and the private finance initiative in 2009 by the then Tory-Liberal Democrat administration at an initial cost of £72 million but, by the end of the contract in 2039, they will have cost £258 million, and that we should never forget the punishing continuing costs of projects funded by PPP/PFI, which, thankfully, the Scottish Government ditched?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 20 June 2024
Christine Grahame
I congratulate Evelyn Tweed on securing the debate. I will restrict my comments to the percentage of eligible pensioners who do not claim pension credit. This is not the first, nor probably the last, speech that I will make on the topic.
Earlier this year, pensioners received notification from the DWP of the pension that they would be paid from April, together with—to be fair—a leaflet advising of pension credit. However, members might not be aware that 40 per cent of pensioners who are entitled to pension credit do not claim it. That figure has remained unchanged for decades.
What is pension credit? It is a UK benefit and you can check online whether you qualify, or you can contact your local citizens advice bureau or my office or use Age UK’s website, which has a handy calculator to check whether you are eligible. It is discreet, and there should never be reluctance to claim that right.
Broadly speaking, when you apply for pension credit, your income is calculated. If you have a partner, both incomes are calculated together. If you qualify, your weekly income is topped up to £218.15 if you are single; if you have a partner, your joint weekly income is topped up to £332.95. Even if your income is higher, you might still be eligible for pension credit if you have a disability, care for someone, have savings or have housing costs.
Apart from that direct income boost, if you get pension credit, you can also get other help known as passported benefits, such as housing benefit if you rent the property that you live in, a cost of living payment, support for mortgage interest if you own the property that you live in, a free TV licence if you are aged 75 or over, and help to pay for national health service dental treatment, glasses and transport costs for hospital appointments. If you get a certain type of pension credit, you can get help with your heating costs through the warm home discount scheme, and you can even get a discount on using the Royal Mail redirection service if you are moving house. A whole range of passported benefits follow if you claim your pension credit, so it is worth seeing whether you are entitled to it. I stress that it is an entitlement, not a handout.
Here are some statistics that are relevant to Midlothian and the Borders. The estimated unclaimed pension credit per annum in Midlothian is £2.5 million, and in the Borders it is £3.66 million. The expected uptake in Midlothian, after campaigns, is only 31 per cent, while in the Borders it is 44 per cent. The lost passported benefits in Midlothian are worth £20,000-plus and those in the Borders are worth £30,000. The number of households that are losing out is estimated to be 92 in Midlothian and 133 in the Borders. Those are entitlements that could affect those 92 and 133 households, where individuals are scraping by when they need not, and should not, be doing so.
I have raised the issue of raising awareness with the UK Government, and I have asked Scottish Borders Council to publicise pension credit in the transport exchange in Galashiels. I will extend my campaign to increase awareness through my entire constituency. In these tough times of austerity and inflation, every claim counts. Please chase it up if you think that you might be entitled to pension credit, even if you are not sure. As I have said, my office would be pleased to help, and all contacts with us are confidential. To those 92 and 133 or so households in Midlothian and the Borders, I say: please claim. It can make all the difference, so that you do not have to choose between heating or eating.
16:37Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 20 June 2024
Christine Grahame
The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care is aware of the concerns about cuts to the services of general practitioner practices in Penicuik, which the practices state are due in part to NHS Lothian’s increasing rental costs. As the First Minister will imagine, I have had many emails on the matter from concerned constituents. Has NHS Lothian taken into account the substantial increase in house building, and therefore in population, in Penicuik and the surrounding area?
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 13 June 2024
Christine Grahame
I thank the member for the question and recognise her work to raise the profile and use of British Sign Language in the Scottish Parliament.
Although inclusion is more complex than a simple pro rata of budgets per population using a language, each year we spend around £90,000 to £100,000 on our services and staff to support and grow BSL inclusion.
The SPCB is proud of its achievements through its first BSL plan and is about to launch the consultation on its second plan. The second plan will build on our current work, not least in continuing to expand the proportion of chamber business that is BSL interpreted from the current level of around 12 per cent, and in continuing to provide interpretation of every First Minister’s question time.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 13 June 2024
Christine Grahame
The member might be interested to know that we interpreted or translated into BSL 12 per cent of chamber business in the first five months of this year, 15 per cent of our committee calls for views, and 20 per cent of our festival of politics events in 2023, which has risen to more than 30 per cent in the 2024 programme.
However, I return to the fact that we are launching our draft BSL2 plan to build on that work, not least in continuing to expand BSL-interpreted chamber business, as well as providing interpretation of every FMQ. The member raises an important issue, so if she can be more specific about what she requires, particularly with regard to committees, I am sure that we can explore and consider that in the draft BSL2 plan.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 13 June 2024
Christine Grahame
To give some context, in the school year that is just ending, the education service has supported more than 400 education establishments; welcomed 214 schools to Holyrood; visited 164 schools; and held online sessions for 59 schools. We have been in every constituency, with a good diversity of age ranges and education settings and reached into schools in areas of deprivation. We know the importance of the impact of visiting the Parliament, but travel is not the practical option or the highest priority for many schools, which is why we offer the digital and outreach services.
I hear, however, what the member has said about the UK Parliament, which the SPCB knows offers a travel subsidy based on distance from the building, starting at 30 miles. We are working with the UK Parliament to understand the impact that that subsidy has had on the profile of the schools that use the service. The policy intention that the SPCB will continue to address in the autumn is whether spending money on a travel subsidy will help to achieve our public engagement goals in the most effective way, in line with the Scotland Act 1998. We are still reviewing and considering the position.
Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: 13 June 2024
Christine Grahame
The education service is a key part of our public engagement strategy delivery and actively works to sustain and grow a wide reach of schools that use it. Our recent members’ feedback surveys reflected positive experiences, as well as the challenges that some schools are facing in travelling to Edinburgh.
As we have informed members previously, the subsidy review is part of the SPCB’s public engagement strategy. That is under a review that is due to conclude in the autumn. Any changes to the priorities of the education service would flow from that, given the important role that the service plays in its delivery.