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 成人快手 and committees will automatically update to show only the 成人快手 and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of 成人快手 and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of 成人快手 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 2049 contributions
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 26 September 2024
Bob Doris
Mr Balfour, the policy intent of amendment 14 seems to be to have a presumption in favour of face-to-face hearings rather than a presumption in favour of choice, but your argument seems to be that you want the policy intent to be to have a presumption in favour of choice rather than a presumption in favour of face-to-face hearings. I am concerned that your policy intent does not match your amendment.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 26 September 2024
Bob Doris
I appreciate the balanced approach that Mr O鈥橩ane is taking in considering the amendments. Whatever the committee and Parliament ultimately decide, does he agree that if someone does not supply information, that does not necessarily mean that there has been an overpayment or any fraud? It could mean that there is vulnerability, which is why they have not got back to Social Security Scotland. If we proceed with the suspension of payments, which I think we should do, we have to be very clear about the threshold in relation to welfare checks around when suspension might ultimately kick in.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 26 September 2024
Bob Doris
I am supportive of the position that you outline, cabinet secretary, but I am also conscious that Mr Balfour suggested a scenario in which the individual wanted the representative to stay in place but, for whatever reason, the paperwork, the bureaucracy and the administration around refreshing that authorisation went astray. There could be a variety of reasons for that, and I think that Mr Balfour鈥擨 am not speaking for him; I am just trying to get clarity from you, cabinet secretary鈥攚as worried that that could be an unintended consequence of withdrawing that representative mandate. What safeguards would be in place under the Government position? Is it more about the culture and practice within the system than having specific provisions in the bill?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 26 September 2024
Bob Doris
I will come on to that later in my contribution, but I refute the way in which Mr Balfour has framed his question to me. I will say more about that a little later, too.
If we were to take Mr Balfour鈥檚 advice, Social Security Scotland would have the best audit in the world. I accept that the level of fraud is very low at the moment, but I think that it would be almost completely non-existent, and errors would be almost non-existent, too, if we had a self-selecting audit. Those likely to step forward to be audited in the first place would be those who were absolutely not likely to have had an overpayment or to have engaged in fraudulent activity. It would be the best audit in the world and would show that Social Security Scotland was doing a fantastic job. I am sure that it is doing a very good job, but we have to identify any weaknesses that there might be, and a self-selecting audit would not allow us to do so.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 26 September 2024
Bob Doris
No pressure on me to be concise then, convener. I appreciate your proactive chastisement of my remarks.
I believe that Jeremy Balfour has made incredibly well-intentioned and important arguments, but I genuinely and sincerely think that his solutions are weak. I would make a similar point about Maggie Chapman鈥檚 amendment 58, too, and I will reflect on that in my contribution.
Having an audit process that was entirely voluntary, as Mr Balfour appears to suggest, would mean that it would not be systematic and methodical, and that would be a key weakness in trying to meet the recommendations that Audit Scotland made a few years ago. It would put the legislation at a disadvantage if we were to agree to Mr Balfour鈥檚 amendment, so I suggest that we do not do so.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Bob Doris
I will seek to be brief, convener. I want to follow up Gordon MacDonald鈥檚 line of questioning to Al Denholm on how the removal of financial transactions and capital revenues might have changed the Scottish National Investment Bank鈥檚 investment decisions. Mr Denholm, you talked about the target rate of return and the reinvestment rate, but a thread running through this whole thing is the need to support Scotland鈥檚 moving to net zero by 2045. Might the investment decisions that are being made lead the bank to make certain decisions that prioritise investment return and sustainability instead of maximising the pursuit of net zero by 2045?
I have a horse in this race鈥攚ell, we all have a horse in this race, but I am a member of the Scottish Parliament鈥檚 Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, which is looking at five-year carbon budgets and the next plan in relation to all of this, and we know that we need to leverage in more major private investment than public investment if we are to get to net zero. Are investment decisions being changed and altered in a way that might compromise that private investment, because of the removal of UK financial transactions revenues?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Bob Doris
Is that exactly the same for Scottish Enterprise?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Bob Doris
That is concerning. I will not come back in after this, convener, but just following on from Mr MacDonald鈥檚 line of questioning, I appreciate that, obviously, you have to look at investment not just through the lens of the greatest impact that it will make, including on our net zero ambitions, but through the lens of the greatest return that will allow Scottish Enterprise and SNIB to get to sustainability as quickly as possible. This particular situation has not compromised net zero investment in any way, has it?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Bob Doris
Okay. Thank you.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 25 September 2024
Bob Doris
Please, convener.