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 1696 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Claire Baker
Good morning, and welcome to the third meeting in 2022 of the Economy and Fair Work Committee. Today’s meeting is being held virtually.
Our first item of business is a decision on whether to take items 6 and 7 in private. Are members content to do so?
Members indicated agreement.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Claire Baker
The committee will now take evidence on the Registers of Scotland (Digital Registration, etc) Regulations 2022. I welcome Tom Arthur, who is the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth. He is joined by Graham Fisher, who is deputy director of the Scottish Government legal directorate, and Harry Murray, who is policy lead at Registers of Scotland.
I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Claire Baker
I appreciate that you are not the lead minister for the skills portfolio, and that the report talks more to that agenda.
There were some concerns about the sector’s ability to deliver for people who need it and to co-ordinate that with what businesses need. There is a need for an improved working relationship between Skills Development Scotland and Colleges Scotland.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Claire Baker
The committee is looking forward to the publication of the 10-year strategy. We had hoped to see it before Christmas, but I appreciate that it has been delayed. You are suggesting that the Logan review will be integral to the new strategy once it arrives, which is welcome.
I will hand over to Maggie Chapman, who has questions on a similar topic.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Claire Baker
We also took evidence on the Logan review on the digital skills gap. As you are speaking to businesses, you will know that that is one of the big issues. It is not just about those people who are far away from the labour market and need the skills to enter it; there are also those who are in the labour market and need to improve their skills and access the digital skills that we need in the modern age. Is there a timeline for the implementation of the Logan review’s recommendations?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Claire Baker
Thank you. We need to make some progress, so I call Michelle Thomson, to be followed by Fiona Hyslop.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Claire Baker
Thank you for your time this morning, minister. I should say that the inquiry arose from concerns that we were hearing from the construction and food and drink sectors about certain pressures, particularly before Christmas. There seems to be less media reporting of concerns about shortages, but that might be because other things are occupying the media at the moment. At the very end of the note on the construction supply chain that you sent the committee, you say:
“The general expectation in the marketplace is that the situation will now begin to settle at least in terms of supply”.
I realise that that applies to construction, but are you seeing the same thing across the Scottish economy? I suppose that it relates more to commodities than to people and places, but we are looking for some assurance that, although things might be starting to settle after the pressure that we saw before Christmas, this is still a priority for Government and that, no matter whether we are having to deal with Brexit, the pandemic or any other factor, there is a recognition that we have an opportunity to change the way in which we do business in Scotland. Having to do so might be partly a result of the pressures that we are experiencing, but there might also be an opportunity to look at aspects that members have highlighted such as shorter and more resilient supply chains.
I know that you have expressed as much this morning, but I wonder whether you can give us a commitment that these issues are still important to the Government and that the 10-year economic strategy will reflect and recognise the importance of looking at supply chains in future.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Claire Baker
Is the minister happy for Harry Murray to answer the question?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Claire Baker
Mr Fisher, would you like to respond? I want to understand why the regulations come into force only if the new primary legislation successfully replaces the emergency acts. Is it expected that the bill will replace them? I am wondering why the Scottish Parliament information centre paper says that that will happen only “if” the bill replaces those pieces of legislation.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Claire Baker
Thank you. I remind members that the subject of the session is supply chains, which is the inquiry that we have been working on for the past few months. The minister is here to answer questions on that. I appreciate that members might want to extend the debate to other areas, but we have limited time, so I ask you to focus on the issue at hand.