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 1235 contributions
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Ivan McKee
There are a number of different things in there. It is early days. We will share that work; the monitoring framework will help to evaluate what is being delivered. In the NPF4, there is a requirement for an infrastructure-first policy and for 20-minute neighbourhoods. Those concepts are embedded in the planning document. Planners will consider the framework in relation to local development plans and planning approvals.
There is a range of things to consider when you get into infrastructure. With a brownfield site, you might be in an environment where there are local communities with local services in close proximity; with a greenfield site, it could be something that is brand new.
Local authorities would develop public service provision plans for schools and so on in relation to their assessment of need. I have had conversations with Glasgow City Council with regard to some communities on that point. Locally, we are working through what schools are available, how many more places they need, based on new housing development, and whether that means that there is a need to expand schools or that there is sufficient capacity already because rolls are falling elsewhere. The local provision is tied up with local capital budgets.
Private sector provision includes GPs, who have the scope to set up their practices where they want to, but also retail and leisure facilities and so on. It will come down to the commercial viability of a lot of that. We are not in a position to mandate people to set up shops in certain areas, but the provision of facilities is included in the planning assumptions in NPF4 in relation to infrastructure first and 20-minute neighbourhoods.
I do not know whether you want to go into more detail on that, Andy.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Ivan McKee
The planning system does not—and cannot—fix all those issues. You rightly identified that different parts of Government are responsible for the provision of different services. I do not think that we can get too much into that, because it is outside the scope of what we are talking about this morning.
Although I recognise the point that you are making, NPF4 has a focus on 20-minute neighbourhoods and infrastructure first, which are important in determining whether planning applications get taken forward. You rightly identified that, if challenges exist in other aspects of public service provision, be that in health or education, local authorities are tasked with the provision of adequate services in those areas.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Ivan McKee
I will hand over to Andy Kinnaird to go through the detail. I received a submission on that from officials in the past few days. We are looking at what the scope of that could be, and we are about to take views on a number of questions to do with how it should be levied, the extent of it, what it could be used for and a number of other factors. That is imminent.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Ivan McKee
The issue of the provision of data, which we keep coming back to, is important. We need to understand what land is where in the system and why it is not moving through the system. We need to know whether that is because of a planning issue or whether there are other reasons that mean that land in relation to which planning permission has been granted is not moving through to be available for housing stock. I think that that is probably the key area. We need to understand the planning provision data and to ensure that, as the policies in NPF4 are rolled out, they are able to support rather than militate against housing development, where that is appropriate.
We have touched on some of the issues. As more guidance comes through and more engagement takes place with bodies that are involved in the planning process, we will get more clarity, which will enable us to address some of those issues and to flesh out in a bit more detail what the policies mean for delivery.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Ivan McKee
Yes—the 25 per cent provision is in place, and you are right to reflect on the record, notwithstanding the fact that there are challenges in housing stock provision. If we look at the record of the Scottish Government, compared with other parts of the UK, considerably more houses have been provided per head of population in Scotland over the past number of years.
The answer to your question about levers—be they macroeconomic levers around interest rates, the ultimate provision of capital investment, or borrowing powers to address the challenges of affordable housing stock, in particular—is that they are controlled by the UK Government, because those issues are reserved.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Ivan McKee
Thanks for that. That issue is being addressed, and the work on compulsory purchase orders—as well as looking at compulsory sales orders—is part of the mix to give councils the tools and capability to do that.
There are also funding issues. I do not want to talk for the housing minister, because he will be looking at that, but it is about understanding where best to focus investment. I suggest that a combination of new build and bringing houses back into use is required.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Ivan McKee
Yes—a group is meeting on that issue, which Roseanna Cunningham is co-chairing with Fiona Simpson. I will hand over to Fiona, and she can give you an update on where her group has got to.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Ivan McKee
There is always a balance to strike. The value of NPF4 is that it covers many different areas—32 policy areas or whatever it is—so it has to be overarching and consider all those factors, but the issue of proportionality is hugely important.
Planning authorities are seized by the issue. The level of information that they seek from applicants is very much driven by proportionality considerations. There will be fewer requirements for householders and small local developments than there will be for major housing or infrastructure developments. There is a recognition in the system that we need to get that balance right. As we do our work, it is important that the guidance that is produced takes that into account, too.
A lot of this is about dealing with different cases as they come forward, building up a body of evidence over time and recognising that proportionality should be leveraged in such a way that we do not create barriers for local communities that want to take forward their plans.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Ivan McKee
I do not want to go into specifics on individual cases, but it is fair to say that that is the intention. I mentioned the UK Climate Change Committee’s comments about NPF4 and the contribution that it makes to support and adaptation. As Andy Kinnaird has said, there are on-going discussions with the statutory bodies on fleshing out the guidance, the process that sits behind that in relation to specific applications finding their way through the system and the various ways that those can be considered at different levels in the system. That is certainly the intention. We recognise that there is work to be done as that beds in to make sure that it delivers the desired result.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 21 May 2024
Ivan McKee
You are right that significant amounts of money are available through those funds. Fiona Simpson will have the latest position on where we are with that.