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 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.
Displaying 1228 contributions
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Ivan McKee
I do not know about looking retrospectively at previous accounts. I will ask officials to comment on the technicalities on that, but I think that there will be a discussion with Audit Scotland on the best arrangements. It is quite likely that it will look to continue using a commercial audit firm, as has happened in the past. However, that will be a matter for Audit Scotland. Rebecca, do you want to comment on the retrospective aspect?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Ivan McKee
Those accounts will have been published, so they are available to be looked at anyway.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Ivan McKee
At the moment, the SFT is paying for the commercial audit. On which part of the public sector will pay for it going forward, I assume that it will still be the SFT, but we can clarify that if it would be helpful.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Ivan McKee
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this morning about the legislative consent memorandum for the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill. The bill was lodged at Westminster on 11 May, and the legislative consent memorandum was lodged at the Scottish Parliament on 2 September.
The Scottish Government fully supports the aims of the UK Infrastructure Bank, which are broadly aligned with ours. Investment in infrastructure will be critical to meeting our commitment to a just transition to net zero and it plays an important role in supporting regional and local economic growth. The purpose of the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill is to put the bank on a statutory footing by placing its objectives in legislation. It is intended to create transparency, accountability and governance.
The UK Infrastructure Bank has already made its first investments. It has been operating on a non-statutory basis since it was established in July 2021. We welcome the ÂŁ22 billion of financing capacity and the advisory services that are being made available to local authorities.
Although our aims are currently aligned, the policy landscape in Scotland differs from that of the rest of the UK, with our infrastructure investment plan, our global capital investment plan and our national strategy for economic transformation providing the framework for our policy priorities. Additionally, Scotland’s climate change plan sets a target date for net zero emissions of all greenhouse gases by 2045, which is five years before the UK Government target. The timeframes and nature of Scotland’s transition to net zero will therefore be different from those of other parts of the UK, and delivery will follow a different approach. We have therefore been seeking assurance that Scotland’s interests will be suitably reflected in the design and delivery of UK Infrastructure Bank activity.
The bill as introduced would allow HM Treasury by regulations made by statutory instrument to amend the UK Infrastructure Bank’s functions or the meaning of “infrastructure”. We appreciate that building in flexibility will allow the UK Infrastructure Bank to be responsive to changing priorities over the longer term without a requirement to update legislation. However, it also creates a future risk of divergence from Scottish Government priorities.
There is a clear overlap between the strategic objectives of the UK Infrastructure Bank and those of the Scottish National Investment Bank, particularly with regard to tackling climate change and supporting regional economic growth. In order to ensure that investments deliver maximum impact, we believe that it is imperative that the two banks are able to work together to identify and support appropriate infrastructure projects in Scotland. It is also crucial that Scottish interests are appropriately represented and that there is an awareness of our economic context.
We are therefore seeking an administrative mechanism such as a memorandum of understanding between the UK Infrastructure Bank and the Scottish National Investment Bank in order to support continued alignment in the approach over the long term. We have also asked for confirmation that there will be no funding implications with respect to the Scottish budget.
Scottish ministers are clear that the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill has merit, but some of the clauses continue to cause constitutional concern. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy wrote to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, John Glen, on 9 June offering in-principle support for a legislative consent motion, but that letter made it clear that legislative consent was contingent on the assurances that I have outlined being provided.
We remain in discussions with the UK Government about the assurances that we have requested. I am hopeful that we may be able to secure those, but we are still to receive a formal response. For now, therefore, I cannot recommend consent to the UK Infrastructure Bank Bill as it stands.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 5 October 2022
Ivan McKee
Thank you very much, convener.
The Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill is very narrowly focused. Although we have some wider and significant concerns about aspects of the free trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand, particularly with regard to agriculture, the focus of the bill itself is only on the implementation of the Government procurement chapters of those deals.
Amendments are needed to procurement legislation to extend duties of equal treatment to bidders from Australia and New Zealand and to make some minor amendments to procedural rules, and the UK Government has opted to confer a power on ministers to make those amendments. As with the power in the Procurement Bill that we have just discussed, the power is drafted too broadly and will be conferred concurrently on UK ministers as well as Scottish ministers with no requirement on UK ministers to secure the consent of Scottish ministers before exercising it in devolved areas. That is clearly unacceptable.
As I have said, the bill itself is relatively narrow in its focus on the procurement chapters of the two agreements, but it would be remiss of me not to say a few words about the agreements more broadly. The Scottish Government has had no direct role in negotiations, and we are very concerned by the impact of both agreements. Those concerns are particularly acute with regard to agri-food. The potential for imports to increase is huge: Australia currently exports 5,000 tonnes of beef to the UK each year, but the agreement will allow 35,000 tonnes in the first year, with the figure increasing each year after. Of course, Australian producers do not have to adhere to the same animal welfare and environmental standards that Scottish farmers do.
It is a similar story with the New Zealand agreement, as a result of which access to the UK beef market will rise to 60,000 tonnes by year 15. There are almost no benefits in this deal for Scotland’s food and drink sector. All that it achieves is exposure of the Scottish agricultural market to the most export-oriented food producers in the world.
To what end? UK Government analysis shows that the deal with New Zealand will deliver a 0.03 per cent benefit to UK gross domestic product over 15 years, with the Australia deal contributing 0.08 per cent. At the same time, the UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement will lead to a contraction of UK GDP by 4.9 per cent over the same period. Of course, the economic self-harm of leaving the EU should come as no surprise. It is notable and worth highlighting that the EU has secured the same market access to New Zealand for its own exporters as the UK, but at a much lower cost to its domestic producers.
Being outside the EU and tied to a UK Government that is hell-bent on reaching trade agreements at almost any price so that it can pretend that Brexit is working is an invidious position to be in, but it is the position in which we find ourselves, and we must try to protect Scottish interests as best we can. The impact of these agreements will be felt throughout Scotland—
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Ivan McKee
We continue to press the UK Government to change the rules, but, obviously, it is a reserved area. We can do what we have done with regard to PPE and other things, which I mentioned earlier. We continue to do a lot of work through our supply chain development programmes and other activities, to look for opportunities to manufacture more products in Scotland in order to create economic opportunities here and build resilience. That is the primary lever that we have to tackle the issue.
Of course, clearly, there are many things that we cannot manufacture here competitively. We can manufacture many things in Scotland, but not everything. Increasing manufacturing here is part of the answer, but it is not the whole answer.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Ivan McKee
There is a gap, but the gap is not as big as you are making out. From memory, in terms of labour market inactivity, we are at 22 per cent and the rest of the UK is at 21 per cent. There are differences, but they are not hugely significant.
In response to an earlier question, I focused on understanding the make-up of the 750,000 people who are not in the labour market. Some of them are in that situation for good reasons: they are in education, they suffer from ill health or they are taking care of their families. However, we need to understand what we can do at the margins to reduce that total number. Obviously, if even 100,000 of those people—to pick a number at random—were back in the labour market, that would be helpful in the situation in which we find ourselves.
For every part of that cohort, there will be a different answer. For parents who are returning to work after having children, childcare provision will be important, so the increase in free childcare hours is hugely important. In rural areas and in some parts of cities, there are issues around transport and access to economic opportunities. Again, the Government is hugely focused on addressing those. For people who have ill health, there might be opportunities for some to access training and support that will enable them to become part of the labour market, which is great for them and for the economy.
One of the interesting differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK is in the number of students in the labour market inactivity pool. We are exploring that further so that we can understand the issues. However, that is a double-edged sword, because we have to ask whether we want students in the labour market when they should be more focused on their studies. There is a balance to be struck.
We are increasingly deeply involved in understanding those issues and driving forward programmes to address each of them separately, because the answers for each cohort are different.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Ivan McKee
The restrictions are another barrier. They make life difficult and they make business difficult. They make harder things that should not be that hard. They make things uncertain, as well, because of all the paperwork requirements. All kinds of clearances are required, and there are various rules and regulations that just put red tape in the way of businesses. The situation is hugely unhelpful. It clogs up supply chains and eats away at the agility of businesses and their capacity to respond as they should.
As you said, the increased restrictions have just come in, so it is too early to say what their specific impact has been. That is another example of the UK Government placing ideology above the needs of business.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Ivan McKee
I was talking about that before, and I have already said that significantly more people are attracted to Scotland from the rest of the UK than leave Scotland to go and live in the rest of the UK, so we have a positive migration level in that respect. On attractiveness, by that measure we can see that Scotland is significantly more attractive than the rest of the UK, and the gap is widening.
On inward investment, likewise; Scotland has, for the past seven years in a row, consistently outperformed every part of the UK apart from London. When it comes to research and development funding, the latest data also shows that Scotland outperforms London.
Furthermore, the data for last year—the year of Covid—shows that Scotland’s inward investment increased by 5 per cent while the UK’s inward investment was at minus 12 per cent and the EU’s was at minus 13 per cent. While inward investment across Europe was going down, it was going up in Scotland. Scotland is an attractive place for inward investment. Our inward investment plan is hugely focused on increasing Scotland’s attractiveness to inward investors. We have more work to do in that regard, but we are in a much better place than many parts of the rest of the UK, when it comes to attracting inward investment.
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Meeting date: 26 January 2022
Ivan McKee
Absolutely—I accept that. As I have said, I am hugely engaged and I am very keen to talk to businesses to see how we can help them further.