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 1911 contributions
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Graham Simpson
Okay. I want to look at a couple of other areas. One is tax debt; the other is pension contributions, which were dealt with in a section in the earlier report that we looked at.
We have explored tax debt before. On 31 March 2023, the UK tax debt was £43.9 billion, according to the National Audit Office report. However, we do not seem to have a breakdown of where that debt falls across Scotland, England and Wales. I suppose that this is a question for you, Ms Stafford: does the Scottish Government intend to build up an accurate picture of what the tax debt is in Scotland?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Graham Simpson
Why is it only an estimate, Mr Athow?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Graham Simpson
Is that in Scotland?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Graham Simpson
That is a serious issue.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Graham Simpson
It comes to a big number, and that money is not flowing to Alyson Stafford’s department. Ms Stafford, you must have a concern about that.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 25 April 2024
Graham Simpson
You should all be doing better on that, because it seems a relatively straightforward thing to do. You will know which employers are not paying what they should. However, I will leave that there, because I want to ask about pensions.
The section on pension contributions in the National Audit Office report says:
“Pension scheme administrators must identify Scottish taxpayers so that tax relief is correctly allocated. Pension administrators claim tax relief at source on behalf of their members and add this to their members’ contributions. HMRC’s Relief at Source (RAS) system automatically confirms the residency status of pension scheme members”.
Of course, we have to know where people live to ensure that the correct relief is applied at source.
The report goes on to say that the RAS system
“applies tax relief on pension contributions at the basic rate of 20% for all taxpayers. Scottish taxpayers paying a tax rate above 20% can claim the remaining tax relief through a Self Assessment return or by contacting HMRC.”
How many people know that they can do that or realise that it is an issue?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Graham Simpson
Will you take an intervention on that point?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Graham Simpson
Minister, Mr Griffin’s amendment 46 simply asks for owners and occupiers to be given the fullest possible information about what the property is actually built of. Is that not reasonable? You are surely not arguing that that is unreasonable.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Graham Simpson
That is what we need more of, minister.
Amendment 7, by agreement, withdrawn.
Section 10 agreed to.
Section 11—Authority for carrying out assessment or work
Amendments 27 to 29 moved—[Paul McLennan]—and agreed to.
Section 11, as amended, agreed to.
Section 12—Warrant authorising use of force to effect entry
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 23 April 2024
Graham Simpson
Members will know that I was recently evacuated from the flat that I rent in Edinburgh. They will also know that everyone who was there that night got out okay, which is the most important thing.
The flats where I was living have cladding, and I know that the owners have been in discussions with the developers about that, so those owners are very much in the scope of the bill.
One thing that struck me at the time of the fire was that there was no list of who actually lived there. Such a list would not have told us who was there during the fire, but it would have been helpful—especially afterwards. We had police going around asking for names and contact numbers of everyone who got out. They did that twice, yet the contact details were never used; they should have been used to provide updates to people. Communications were initially poor, although they have definitely improved.
No one appears to be in charge. We have a residents’ forum, which is very useful, but not everyone is necessarily aware of it or on it. Factors deal with owners, as they should, but I have long thought that factors should deal with anyone who is living in a development for which they are responsible. Tenants, of which I was one, should not have to rely on an owner who they might never have met to inform them of a building’s fire safety status. Communication is key.
11:00My amendment 5 would require that a register be set up of the owners and occupiers of the buildings in the cladding assurance register. That way, everyone would know if work was to be carried out. It would also mean that, should there be a fire, there would be an invaluable central record of information.
I would say that the current system is haphazard—but for the fact that there is no system. Wider issues with tenements are being looked at by the Scottish Law Commission and the tenement maintenance working group, which I convene. If members are interested, they can attend a joint meeting of those groups on 8 May, from 6 o’clock, in committee room 5.
The other amendments in the group should also be supported. Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 55—yes: it appears in this group—says that ministers must consult with owners, occupiers and residents committees before arranging a single building assessment. However, of course, you first have to know who those people are, so amendment 55 works well with my amendment 5. Miles Briggs argues that the same people should be told the results of an assessment and be informed about any on-going work. There is no reasonable argument to be made against any of the amendments in the group, but no doubt the minister will have a go.
I move amendment 5.