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 1311 contributions
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Jeremy Balfour
If I can push on that a wee bit, Deputy First Minister, I am not sure that I understand yet what that 拢82 million was going to be used for. I appreciate that the money goes into a big pot, and you described how that pot is spent. However, it is hard for the committee and the Parliament to know the intended purpose if we do not know how the 拢82 million was going to be spent. For example, was it for social security or education? Presumably, you had allocated 拢82 million to a particular Government department or budget. Where is that money coming from?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Jeremy Balfour
I will push on that a wee bit. I think that what you suggest is all very sensible but it is only the best medium-term solution. My question is鈥攇iven that I do not think that using a boat is a solution for anything except for an extremely short period of time鈥攄o you think that there is a short-term answer to the problem?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Thank you for making the time to speak to us this morning. To follow on from Pam Duncan-Glancy鈥檚 questions, what will be the practical effects with regard to the employability budget reduction? You said that there is an increase in the budget and that the changes will not affect services that are being provided. I am trying to work out what the extra 拢56 million was planned to do, if its absence is not going to affect direct services.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Good morning, gentlemen. I will go back to Pam Duncan-Glancy鈥檚 previous questions about the legislation that will be introduced next week. I appreciate that we do not yet know the details of the legislation鈥攚e will see it, I think, an hour before the committee sits. Obviously, there might be more issues in Edinburgh and Lothian, but I have a number of constituents who have buy-to-let properties, so their mortgages are being paid by the rent payments that they receive. With mortgage payments possibly now going up because of inflation and interest rates, are you concerned that those people will have to withdraw their properties from the market? One of the other unforeseen circumstances could be that there is less housing available for rent, because people cannot meet their mortgage payments.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Jeremy Balfour
It is a quick question for Gordon MacRae. On Monday, I met with a fairly large homelessness charity in Edinburgh and heard about the impact of the people coming from Ukraine on the demand that already exists. Obviously, we all welcome the Ukrainians coming to Edinburgh and other parts of Scotland, but how do we deal with the other people who are still on the list? Practically, do you see the way forward as being to keep people in the central belt, or should there be a different policy? The committee has discussed previously whether it is better to distribute people throughout Scotland. Obviously, the issue will go on for a number of months, if not years. What is the longer-term approach?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Maybe I will try just one more time. On a practical level, will it mean that a particular service is affected? It is a reasonable amount of money, so does it mean that a third sector charity will not be getting funding or that a particular project will not now be run? I appreciate that this is happening at a high level, but what consequence will it have for individuals in Scotland for the next six months?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Can you give us a list of those programmes?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Okay. I am a bit confused, but I am sure that others will pick that up.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Meeting date: 29 September 2022
Jeremy Balfour
Thank you, both, for coming. I appreciate the situation that you are in, but today we are trying to look forward to next year鈥檚 budget. We must remember that we are here to scrutinise the Scottish Government鈥檚 budget, not the UK Government鈥檚 budget. This is the Scottish Parliament and we are responsible for the decisions that are made here by our Parliament and our Government.
With regard to the budget for next year鈥攚e are considering next year鈥檚 budget, not the current position鈥攚hat priorities do you want the Scottish Government to have?
Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee
Meeting date: 27 September 2022
Jeremy Balfour
It does. That is very helpful. Thank you.