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 ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 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 3573 contributions
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Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Kenneth Gibson
Thank you. That would be very helpful.
What seems to have come out of the discussion is that the additional dwelling supplement appears to be a bit of a blunt instrument, although there are lots of really good aspects to it. John Mason made an interesting point. Raising the additional dwelling supplement to 6 per cent will not just make things more competitive for first-time buyers; it will probably deter a number of people in the buy-to-let sector from entering the market in the first place, which could reduce upward pressure on prices. That could be a significant positive gain from the policy.
The policy might deter people from buying second homes in our rural areas. In relation to some islands in Scotland, the figure is well over 50 per cent. A couple of years ago, I was in Colonsay, where, I think, 108 people live and only two children are in the school, with many of the properties having been bought by retirees who use them as second homes. However, some of the properties are not second homes; some people live in them. I realise that that is a housing issue rather than a finance issue.
The ADS can be a bit of a blunt instrument when it comes to people buying derelict houses or houses that are a wee bit rundown so that they can upgrade and live in them. Further thought should also be given to that. To me, the ADS is too broad an instrument. It has some positive aspects, but there are also negative aspects. In broad terms, it can act as both an incentive and a disincentive in relation to the Government’s objectives.
Minister, do you want to add anything before we move on?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Kenneth Gibson
There will be a division.
For
Gibson, Kenneth (Cunninghame North) (SNP)
Greer, Ross (West Scotland) (Green)
Johnson, Daniel (Edinburgh Southern) (Lab)
Mason, John (Glasgow Shettleston) (SNP)
Thomson, Michelle (Falkirk East) (SNP)
Abstentions
Lumsden, Douglas (North East Scotland) (Con)
Smith, Liz (Mid Scotland and Fife (Con)
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Kenneth Gibson
The result of the division is: For 5, Against 0, Abstentions 2.
Motion agreed to,
That the Finance and Public Administration Committee recommends that the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (additional amount: transactions relating to second homes etc.) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2022 (SSI 2022/375) be approved.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Kenneth Gibson
Do members have any further comments?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Kenneth Gibson
I second that. I bought my first flat when I was 21. My children are aged 30, 26 and 24. One still lives at home and two of them rent, because they simply cannot afford the deposit that is required to buy a property, so I sympathise with that viewpoint. That is having huge socioeconomic impacts in Scotland. It affects people’s decisions on when to start a family and all the things that follow on from that.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Kenneth Gibson
What is likely to be the behavioural impact of the measure? You have talked about the importance of the money—an additional £34 million—that will be raised through it. The £34 million is not net; it is following behavioural change. What is your view on the level of that behavioural change and how it will impact this tax in future years?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Kenneth Gibson
That is in the south-east of England. You will find that, in places such as Preston or Huddersfield, the average is nowhere near those prices.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Kenneth Gibson
It does not lower the price of the house for those people; it just means that their rivals would pay more for the same house.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Kenneth Gibson
Good morning, and welcome to the second meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee.
The first item on our agenda is an evidence session with the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, Tom Arthur, on a Scottish statutory instrument. Mr Arthur is joined by Ewan Cameron-Nielsen, who is head of the fully devolved taxes unit at the Scottish Government. I welcome you both to the meeting.
I advise members that I own a flat that I rent out, as per my entry in the register of members’ interests.
I invite Mr Arthur to make a short opening statement.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Subordinate legislation
Meeting date: 17 January 2023
Kenneth Gibson
It seems to me that, when the legislation was put in place, no thought was given to that anomaly. If there are two RSLs, with one run by a local authority and the other by a housing association, it seems daft that the relief applies to one and not the other. We will move on from that, but others might wish to look at it in more depth.
We have received responses from the Scottish Association of Landlords, the Scottish Property Federation and others. Although the theory behind the proposed increase is, as you said in your opening statement, that it will make more houses available to first-time buyers, the Scottish Association of Landlords said that most of its tenants are not in a position to buy, which is why they are in the private rented sector.
The Scottish Association of Landlords said that the increase will reduce the availability of properties in the sector, because it will act as a deterrent to people investing in the sector. The survey of members that it undertook last month revealed that
“44% of landlords are planning to reduce their portfolio size in the next 5 yearsâ€
and that
“around 10% of tenants in Scotland will be evicted in the next 5 years so that landlords can exit the sector by selling their properties with vacant possession.â€
If the sector has issues at this time, how will what has been proposed help?
