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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.

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.

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Displaying 1169 contributions

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Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Visitor Levy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 14 November 2023

Tom Arthur

I have met representatives of both of our national parks and have had some very useful discussions. Again, I would be grateful for the committee’s views on this, but one thing that I have taken away from those discussions is the need to consider whether there must be any further provision in the eventual legislation on engagement with the national parks. That said, I recognise that the scheme is for local authorities to administer as the tax authority.

The bill as introduced provides the ability for two or more local authorities to work together. You could imagine, for instance, authorities that share areas of a national park working together on developing a specific levy that would cover the park, but that would be a decision for individual local authorities working together collaboratively. Similarly, on the point about a regional approach, the provision in the bill to allow local authorities to work together would allow a number of councils to collaborate on a visitor levy and to make decisions, through consultation and engagement, on how that revenue can be utilised most meaningfully and impactfully within their particular region. Again, though, those decisions will ultimately be for individual local authorities to take.

Notwithstanding that, I reiterate that I will consider what further measures might be required to ensure that the voice of the national parks is appropriately recognised—including in the proposed legislation, if necessary. I think that there is sufficient flexibility there. I am keen to ensure that the framework provided by the legislation is as straightforward to administer as it possibly can be, while retaining flexibility to allow local authorities to respond, either individually or collectively, depending on the needs and assets of their particular areas.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Visitor Levy (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 14 November 2023

Tom Arthur

That question gets to the heart of the issue of national consistency and local flexibility. I appreciate that a view might be formed in the Parliament that, regardless of location, certain categories of individual circumstance should be exempt. However, I am also conscious of the importance of local autonomy in deciding what is best for a particular area, and of the need to ensure as much administrative simplicity as possible for local authorities and businesses. The legislation allows for exemptions to be determined locally. The expert group has undertaken work on best practice and guidance, and it could consider that as part of its work.

As for getting the balance right in this respect, I want to ensure that, beyond what is in the bill, business, communities and local government have the opportunity, through working together and engaging through consultation, to determine the best suite of exemptions—if any—for their particular area.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Council Tax Freeze

Meeting date: 14 November 2023

Tom Arthur

I am grateful for the opportunity to answer questions on this issue.

We very much recognise the views that have been expressed by local government since the First Minister’s announcement on the council tax freeze. In fact, since then, the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister have met and had engagement with COSLA.

The Verity house agreement, which underpins our new deal with local government, is broad and wide ranging. The fiscal element is just one part of that agreement; council tax is just one part of the fiscal element; and the council tax freeze is just one part of our considerations around council tax. The committee will be aware of the work that has been undertaken through the joint working group on sources of local government funding and council tax reform.

We are committed to engaging constructively with local government colleagues in COSLA to ensure that we are able to successfully implement a council tax freeze. I think that there is a shared understanding that that would be of benefit to households who are struggling right across Scotland.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Council Tax Freeze

Meeting date: 14 November 2023

Tom Arthur

It is progressing constructively, as is engagement in the pre-budget space. The visitor levy legislation, which we were considering in the previous evidence session, is an excellent example of the partnership working that is being done with local government to develop a proposition in response to a long-term ask from local government. We also touched on the cruise ship levy, which we have committed to. Again, that is a proposition that has come from local government and to which we are responding positively.

I lead on and have direct responsibility for certain aspects of local government finance, and I am committed to working in partnership with local government colleagues to look at the opportunities that we have to further increase the fiscal empowerment of local government. That is reflected in the visitor levy and the cruise ship levy that we have committed to, as well as in the work that we have undertaken on reforming aspects of the council tax, such as the consultation on levying a premium on second homes.

We are making progress and I know that my ministerial colleagues in other portfolios covering a wide range of areas can speak to where they have seen significant progress as a result of that partnership working approach. We are certainly committed to recognising the huge opportunities afforded by working in partnership and with mutual respect with our local government colleagues.