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 ˿ and committees will automatically update to show only the ˿ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ˿ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ˿ 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 3510 contributions
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Kenneth Gibson
That is certainly helpful. It is a lower figure than what I and—I am sure—others have heard. Colleagues may wish to pursue that further.
I want to talk about the capital and fiscal framework. It has been a very difficult year in that the capital allocation from the UK Government has been reduced by £185 million—obviously, with inflation, that figure is higher.
When we asked questions with regard to the capital and fiscal framework, the response was that the Scottish Government has
“disproportionately constrained borrowing and reserve powers.”
Since 2016, inflation has been 39 per cent, but the Scottish Government is still working with the same kind of figures that it had all those years ago. Have you had any indication from the UK Government about when it would be willing to review the borrowing figures, for example? Inflation is 50 per cent higher than it was in 2016—perhaps even 60 per cent or 70 per cent higher. What on-going discussions have you had, because that is clearly having an impact on the Scottish Government’s ability to manage its finances?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Kenneth Gibson
Okay. Behavioural change is another issue that is very important in relation to future Scottish Government policy and thinking. As you will know, the Scottish Fiscal Commission told us that it believes that, although the higher additional rate of tax would raise £30 million on paper, it would raise only £3 million in reality because of behavioural change. The Fiscal Commission emphasises that that change would be more people not working as hard, as opposed to people with more than one address moving their tax affairs south of the border.
However, in your response you said that the Scottish Government had considered the issue and that the
“study found no evidence of significant behaviour change, including cross-border migration, as a result of our move to a more progressive tax system.”
How does that sit with the comments of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, which says that 90 per cent of that income from a simple additional penny will be lost? That is a very dramatic loss for a small increase, yet the Scottish Government seems to be saying that it does not see that happening.
In previous meetings with the committee, you have suggested that the Scottish Government is very aware of behaviour change. Where are we on the issue? It clearly needs further exploration.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Kenneth Gibson
I am just wondering if there is any way—
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Kenneth Gibson
On employability, I was intrigued by the comments about the Dundee pathfinder project. We will want to look at that further.
You will be aware that the UK Government is talking about when it will raise the pension age from 67 to 68, and about bringing that forward from 2044 to 2034, which will, of course, increase the workforce. I do not know how many people aged 67 to 68 will want to remain in the workforce, but that is when the state pension age will change.
In terms of employability, yesterday I was at ACS Clothing in Motherwell. I do not know how familiar you are with that facility. It is a circular economy facility—it is the largest clothing recycling facility in Europe and it puts clothes back into the marketplace. It employs 150 people, and 16 per cent of its workforce have disabilities. It also has a very high proportion of refugees and ex-offenders working there. It takes a lot of people from the margins, and it pays well. It is very high tech and has a very low carbon footprint and so on—a lot of very good things are happening there. My point is about trying to learn from some of that best practice and seeing how it can be expanded around Scotland.
11:00Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Kenneth Gibson
That will be next year.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Kenneth Gibson
Of course.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Kenneth Gibson
ACS is also a social enterprise. The cross-party group on the circular economy is going to visit it. I asked the company about ex-offenders and was told that the level of productivity is excellent. The company would not mind at all if the whole workforce was made up of ex-offenders because they are able to deliver the product that is required.
I have a question about the private finance initiative and public-private partnerships, which placed a significant annual financial burden on the Scottish Government when it came into office in 2007. I understand that interest rates going up has had a significant impact. What impact are increased payments having on the Scottish Government and local authorities?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Kenneth Gibson
Before the rise in inflation, my local authority had to pay about £16 million or £17 million for schools that were completed in 2007. Those payments go up to 2037, but I understand that they have increased significantly because many of them are tied into current interest rates as opposed to rates that are fixed over a period of time. So that we can consider the implications of that across the public sector, any information on the issue would be helpful.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Kenneth Gibson
One area of taxation where there is concern is council tax. A working group, which includes representatives from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, has been set up to consider proposals for meaningful changes to be introduced in the short term, such as increasing the rates of council tax on second and empty homes. The group will also consider approaches to long-term reform. When is that working group likely to report?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Kenneth Gibson
I will stay with council tax. Currently, the Scottish Government provides council tax relief and 450,000 households receive a council tax reduction, with recipients saving more than £750 a year on average. By my calculations, that is a Scottish Government investment of £337.5 million, give or take one or two million. If council tax increases substantially this year, do you anticipate a significant increase in the Scottish Government’s input to that scheme?