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 3226 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Kenneth Gibson
We are basically walking a tightrope.
How much was the UK spend on interest on its debt in the most recent month for which you have figures?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Kenneth Gibson
I will open the session to colleagues. The first question is from the deputy convener, Daniel Johnson.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Kenneth Gibson
Even in the broadest sense, if we have 1.6 million or 1.7 million people who are unemployed and about 5 million who are economically inactive, that will clearly have a major impact on growth, productivity and tax revenues.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Kenneth Gibson
David, do you want to come in?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Kenneth Gibson
A lot of the money that was underspent on the concessionary fares scheme for young people was switched to bus services in the summer to ensure that they did not fold. That was the case with some local services in my constituency.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Kenneth Gibson
I do not think that it helps to have tax havens in the British isles, if we include the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
We have talked about the GDP deflator, but what matters to people who put in pay claims is public perception. I would therefore suggest that this is all about headlines, which have a significant impact on the public sector, rather than the GDP deflator. The UK Government might say, “The Treasury costs are blah blah blah, so that is the GDP deflator,” but that is not how the public see it—they just see what is on the news and in the papers.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Kenneth Gibson
My understanding is that the figure came from Richard Hughes, the chair of OBR. We will move on.
You talked about growth. I was looking at The Economist’s review of 2023. As you will know, every year The Economist provides a number of forecasts, although they are not the kind of forecasts that we generally discuss—perhaps “predictions” is a better word—for economic growth and so on. It says that the UK will grow at -0.8 per cent next year, with a per capita income of $55,000 at purchasing power parity, whereas the Republic of Ireland will grow at 5.4 per cent, with a purchasing power parity per capita income of $135,000. Why is the UK in such a different position from countries such as Ireland, which is just next door?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Kenneth Gibson
That is a good point. I understand that there has been a 600,000 increase in the number of people who are economically inactive relative to the number before the pandemic. I appreciate that that is an issue.
One of the things that has been predicted is a 7 per cent fall in living standards during the next two years. Obviously, the impact of that will vary considerably. Which groups in society do you feel will be most and least impacted?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Kenneth Gibson
I have one more question, which is about the block grant adjustment OBR tax forecasts. We have already heard that we do not expect much, if any, growth in the next few years, and we have heard about how living standards are going to fall. The OBR has predicted that Scotland’s income tax take, for example, will grow from just under £14.7 billion to just over £18.1 billion by 2027-28. That is a huge increase of almost £3.4 billion. Do you see that coming through fiscal drag or other measures?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Budget Scrutiny 2023-24 (United Kingdom Context)
Meeting date: 6 December 2022
Kenneth Gibson
I would have thought that the idea of an office that tries to make tax simpler and more understandable would be a positive thing.
The OBR mentioned unemployment, which we have touched on only peripherally. The OBR expects UK unemployment to rise by between 3.6 and 4.9 per cent by 2024. That will be a significant proportion of the workforce, at in excess of 1.5 million people. What might the regional impacts of that be? How do you anticipate that impacting on Scotland?
