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 łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees will automatically update to show only the łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of łÉČËżěĘÖ and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of łÉČËżěĘÖ 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 2297 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2021/22”
Meeting date: 9 February 2023
Willie Coffey
It sounds as though there could be a potential windfall further down the line. When can we expect to see the real figure emerge?
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2021/22”
Meeting date: 9 February 2023
Willie Coffey
Is the £50 million figure—the actual positive differential that the Auditor General mentioned—an example of that?
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2021/22”
Meeting date: 9 February 2023
Willie Coffey
Is there any further information that the committee could get, either from you or HMRC, about the categories and groups of employees—
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2021/22”
Meeting date: 9 February 2023
Willie Coffey
Thank you for helping to clarify that.
On the S codes and their application by employers in Scotland, the number of employers that do not apply the S tax code to their employees appears to be going up. The paper in front of us says that there were about 39,000 cases of that, and that it is now up to 41,000. Do you have a view on why that continues to be the case? Is it the same sectors that are repeatedly not applying the code, and do you, or does anyone else, have any information that could help the committee to understand what is going on and what work is being done to fix that problem?
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2021/22”
Meeting date: 9 February 2023
Willie Coffey
Convener, I think that we asked HMRC for that last year, but I do not recall whether we got a response. Clearly, the committee is interested in why and whether employers are habitually not applying the S code to their employees’ tax returns. Can you add anything on that, Auditor General?
Public Audit Committee
“Administration of Scottish income tax 2021/22”
Meeting date: 9 February 2023
Willie Coffey
I would certainly be interested—I am sure that colleagues would be, too—in whether it is a few employers, with high numbers of employees, that are habitually not applying the code. I am sure that it would be of interest to the committee to help resolve that. We do not know, because we do not see that level of detail. Perhaps we could follow up on that if we get the opportunity.
My final question is about parliamentarians and the correct application of the S tax code. You will probably recall that, in the early days of the Parliament, 45 of our dearly beloved colleagues were not regarded as Scottish taxpayers. Is that problem completely resolved now for Scottish members of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish members of Parliament who serve at Westminster? Do we know who they all are, and are we applying an S tax code to them all?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Willie Coffey
The issue of floor plans is coming up later, so I will wait for my colleague to follow up on that. I thank all the witnesses.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Willie Coffey
Fiona Campbell, I want to give you the opportunity to share with the committee the unintended consequences of the licensing scheme. You touched on a few. So that we can get a complete picture on the record, will you talk about any other areas of concern that you have?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Willie Coffey
Okay. Thank you very much for putting all that on the record. Julia, do you have any comments to throw into the mix on the subject of unintended consequences?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 7 February 2023
Willie Coffey
I have another question, which is probably only for Fiona Campbell. You said in your submission that you would like to see an immediate review of the licensing scheme rather than wait until the system is fully embedded in 12 or 18 months’ time, which I think was the period that was mentioned in the previous session. Why are you calling for an immediate review, before the scheme has had the chance to bed in?
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