Plenary, 06 Oct 2005

Meeting date: Thursday, October 6, 2005

Official Report 780KB pdf

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Question Time

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SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE

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General Questions

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Booze and Blade Culture

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to address the so-called "booze and blade" culture in Scotland. (S2O-7780)

Violent crime of any kind is unacceptable and the levels of violence in Scotland are a blight on our civilised country. We will tackle the problem through tough new laws to deal with knife crime, including tighter control of sales and tougher sentencing for offences; licensing reforms to place more onus on licensed premises for responsible drinking; supporting the work of Strathclyde police's violence reduction unit; and supporting community safety partnerships and antisocial behaviour teams in addressing alcohol problems and violence at a local level.

I thank the minister for her comprehensive response, which reflects the genuine concern felt by many neighbourhoods and communities throughout Scotland about knife crime and the use of alcohol. Does she agree that too many lives, and too many young lives in particular, are being damaged by the lethal concoction of drink and weapons? Does she recognise that we need real powers, such as those that she outlined, to tackle the problem? Will she assure me that, once legislation is introduced, it will be kept under review over the next few years and that any further action and initiatives that may be required will not be ruled out?

I absolutely agree that too many young lives are lost through crime. We also have too many young perpetrators of crime who end up in our young offenders institutions and prisons. I assure the member that we will continue to consider what legislative solutions are required.

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Biofuels

To ask the Scottish Executive how it is encouraging the use of biofuels in light of the level of oil prices. (S2O-7749)

The Scottish Executive supported the construction of Scotland's first large-scale biodiesel production plant through a £1.2 million regional selective assistance grant. The plant is now fully operational. The United Kingdom Government currently applies a 20p per litre fuel duty incentive for biofuels. The Executive is working closely with the UK Government on consideration of potential additional measures to promote biofuels.

Given that transport is recognised as a major source of carbon emissions, does the minister agree that encouraging farmers and industry to increase the production of biofuel alternatives would greatly benefit the environment as well as help agriculture in the uncertain times that it faces? Will the new measures to which he referred include a reduction in fuel duty for such fuels? Will he at least consider such a reduction and discuss it with colleagues in Westminster?

As I said, we are in discussion with UK Government colleagues. I agree that promoting biofuels would produce environmental benefit by reducing the use of fuels that generate carbon emissions. We are considering more generally the impact of fuel duty on climate change. As the member may know, fuel duty rates are lower today than they were in 1999.

Does the minister agree that Scottish agricultural crops such as soft wheat are ideally suited for the production of biofuels and that it is therefore crucial that the biofuel projects that are encouraged are as informed as possible? Given that the plant belonging to Argent Energy Ltd has received £1.2 million of Scottish Executive money and could be a model for future biofuel projects, will he encourage the company to co-operate in sharing non-confidential information and experience?

I agree with the member's basic premise, but I am unaware of any difficulty over the sharing of information. Biofuels have not been mainstreamed in the UK as they have been in other parts of the globe. Given that production is carried out on a small scale in the UK, higher production levels would decrease storage, distribution and other costs and make biofuels more competitive with conventional fuels. In that respect, I agree fundamentally with the point that the member has made.

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Health Spending

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers that health spending should be focused on the communities with the poorest health. (S2O-7783)

Those with the poorest health are generally found in the most deprived parts of Scotland. The formula used for allocating resources to national health service boards takes into account relative levels of deprivation. Health improvement policy aims at improving health for all, with a focus on tackling inequalities. The recent report from Professor David Kerr highlighted the differences in life expectancy between the most affluent and least affluent communities. I will provide my full response to Professor Kerr's recommendations on 27 October.

Professor Graham Watt of the University of Glasgow has pointed out that good medical care tends to be most available to those who need it least and Professor David Kerr told the Health Committee that current arrangements lead to a widening in health inequalities. Does the minister therefore agree that it is time that we looked again at how funds are distributed so that we stop pouring money into making the healthiest healthier while my constituents are dying in their 50s and 60s?

Relative deprivation levels are reflected in the Arbuthnott formula and the national resource allocation committee is currently reviewing that issue. I agree with the member that it is simply unacceptable that life expectancy in some communities is drastically less than in the rest of Scotland. I draw members' attention to the work that we are doing—for which our efforts are recognised by the World Health Organisation and throughout the world—around inequality, access to services and making the healthy choice the easy choice, as well as through interventions in schools, including hungry for success and other such initiatives.

I accept Mr McNeil's point, but my response to the Kerr review will take what he says a bit further in relation to how we access those communities. At the moment, there are unmet needs pilots all round Scotland, which are working away to establish why needs are not being met. In Glasgow, the centre for population health is focused on the very issue of why those who need the health service most do not access it. We seek to respond to those individual pieces of information.

Is the minister satisfied that the current health funding formula is addressing health inequalities? How does he measure success or otherwise with that formula? Does he remain convinced that the use of indirect criteria such as deprivation and rurality is appropriate in seeking to change health inequalities?

Poor health has many underlying causes, including access to transport, geography, rurality, housing, well-being and employment expectation. All those matters, including damp houses and transport planning, contribute to the problem. What we seek to do, and what the Arbuthnott formula does well, is to try to rank population profile, health profile, age groups of local communities and the well-being of those communities. However, that will never be a perfect science.

As a forward-looking Executive, we are undertaking projects such as the unmet needs pilots, looking to those communities that should be using the services but are not using them. What Kerr tells us is that we need to transfer from the centre of the health service the services that will make a difference to those communities. We should consider our campaigns on breastfeeding and on supervised toothbrushing in nurseries, the hungry for success initiative in primary schools and the work that we are doing on well-being in secondary schools. All those projects are making a real difference for the long term in those communities.

Does the minister recognise that there are pockets of deprivation and poor health in what are considered to be prosperous urban areas as well as in rural areas? Will he assure me that those areas will not be neglected in considerations of the allocation of future health spending?

When Margaret Curran was Minister for Communities, she launched an initiative to provide smaller-area statistics, to allow us to address issues of relative well-being and prosperity, to identify pockets of deprivation throughout Scotland and to focus on areas of hardship and areas that are less well-off. We have those data and that information and we continue to work our services around a knowledge-based policy that will deliver for those communities. That information is available and I am happy to correspond with Nanette Milne on that point.

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Local Rail Services

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will support the reopening of small stations on the west coast main line following the Atkins report supporting the case for a new local service to operate between Carlisle and both Glasgow and Edinburgh if possible. (S2O-7803)

The Scottish Executive has already responded to Dumfries and Galloway Council on the west coast main line local services report.

I understand the Scottish Executive's position, but does the minister accept the report's conclusion that a local service would bring significant wider benefit, would be strongly integrated with local policy across a number of transport areas, would provide a significant benefit in wider economic terms and is particularly relevant for an area with significant access issues? Does the Executive accept those findings?

If Mr Ballance is familiar with the issues relating to the report, the way in which it was presented and its findings, he will know that it was appraised using the Scottish transport appraisal guidance. That appraisal, as I am sure he is aware, illustrated that there were a number of deficiencies in the report that needed to be addressed. The inaccuracies related particularly to the economic analysis and to the fact that certain risks and uncertainties had not been taken into account. To ensure that the report is full, comprehensive and complete, Dumfries and Galloway Council must consider those issues. We reported those matters to the council on 30 June and we still await a response to those specific aspects. Once those matters are cleared up, I would be content to consider the wider issues that Mr Ballance has raised in relation to developing rail strategy projects generally.

The minister will be aware of my on-going concerns about the apparent secrecy that has surrounded the whole process. I share some of his concerns about the report. I seek clarification and assurance that the inadequacy of the report does not confer any inadequacy on the case for those rail services. I would welcome an opportunity to discuss with him how we can move the issue forward and bring in other local authorities and—just as important—the public, who have been the missing component in the survey. The figures and information that appear in the report certainly do not add up to the information that I have on the ground.

I would be happy to discuss those matters with Karen Gillon. She raises some important points about the wider implications and how best to develop the issues. I am sure that she would expect me to ensure that the analysis is robust and complete. I will be happy to examine the specific issues that she has raised with regard to the report and to consider how best to progress, through putting the project in the overall context of public investment in our public transport systems.

Does the minister agree that one of the constraints on introducing local services on the west coast line is the difficulty, due to capacity constraints, of running slower local services along with faster intercity services? Does he also agree that that constraint is increasingly affecting freight traffic, both on the west coast main line and on the diversionary line through the Nith valley? Does he share my long-term objective of increasing the capacity on both those major trunk routes?

Mr Morgan makes an eminently sensible point about the basic contradiction between three different desires that I am sure we all share in relation to freight, fast point-to-point passenger links and the inevitably slower commuter links. The route utilisation assessment that is currently under way is considering how best we can use the track that is available to meet those at times conflicting requirements of our rail infrastructure system. I would be happy to consider the specific issues that he has raised on the overall capacity of the routes, but one of the important aspects of the current route utilisation assessment is that it will seek to point up where the constraints are and consider how to address those issues.

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Land Management Contracts

To ask the Scottish Executive what social and environmental benefits it anticipates from land management contracts. (S2O-7806)

The type of social benefits that will be delivered by the LMC menu scheme will include increased public enjoyment of the countryside from the provision of better access, a more skilled workforce that benefits from training, and increased public understanding of land management issues. It will also deliver a broad range of environmental benefits, such as enhanced biodiversity, better water quality and landscape improvements.

I am sure that the minister will agree—and that he will have reaffirmed in the revised organic action plan—that organic farming's holistic approach delivers many of the benefits that land management contracts are looking for. However, the rules are written in such a way that some organic farmers find it difficult to tick the boxes. Does he agree that organic status conferred by a recognised certification body should give automatic entry to tier 2, and probably to tier 3, of land management contracts?

I am not sure about automatic entry, but I certainly think that the rules should enable organic farmers to gain equal access to those schemes. I certainly do not wish to anticipate the outcome of any consultation on the precise formula for tier 3, as that would be inappropriate. However, I am convinced that all those menu schemes were well designed. As Eleanor Scott will be aware, 11 of the 17 current options are environmental and we continue to discuss with stakeholders, including organic stakeholders, how we can finesse and refine what has been a groundbreaking scheme.

Does the minister agree that the land management schemes do not give people sufficient encouragement to plant woodland? As we are concerned about climate change, we should be using the land management contracts to plant woodland and to grow biomass.

I can think of at least two schemes that are specifically designed to encourage afforestation. The LMC menu scheme is groundbreaking. There will be a minor review this year and there will have to be a further review before we start the rural development programme in 2007. The member has in the past mentioned the increased importance of short-rotation coppices, which I am open to including in the review. However, the current scheme does not exclude encouragement for forestry.

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A68 (Environmental Impact Assessment)

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider carrying out an up-to-date environmental impact assessment of the A68 Dalkeith bypass, in light of other infrastructure changes that have been implemented or planned in the Lothians since 1996. (S2O-7739)

The statutory processes for the road are complete. However, the department is currently updating the baseline environmental information. The mitigation measures previously developed for the scheme will therefore be updated and incorporated into the design.

I warmly welcome what the minister says, but does he agree that the Borders rail link proposal and other developments will substantially alter the transport infrastructure? Would a more up-to-date environmental impact assessment be advisable in view of the incredibly lengthy delay?

The incredibly lengthy delay started when Lord James Douglas-Hamilton was the transport minister. I welcome the Conservatives' support for the Borders rail project, which will provide considerable benefits to Midlothian as well as to the Borders. I repeat the central point on the baseline environmental information. It is important that we get that right and ensure that it is properly assessed. I assure Lord James that, when that is done, I will make him aware of the contents.

The minister will be aware that the strategic roads review in 1999 said of the A68 Dalkeith bypass that there were

"generally negative ratings on … environmental factors, including global air quality, water, ecology, visual impacts, heritage and landscape character."

The review recommended that a multimodal appraisal be carried out to compare the benefits of the A68 Dalkeith bypass with other ways of tackling congestion and pollution in Dalkeith town centre. Why has that multimodal review not been carried out to compare the benefits of the bypass with other transport alternatives to meet the needs of the people of Dalkeith, as was envisaged in the 1999 strategic roads review from the Executive, of which the minister is a member?

I am disappointed that Mr Ballard has got it wrong at two question times—he tried to suggest that course of action previously. The Greens appear to be against a measure that would dramatically improve congestion in Dalkeith. They cannot have it both ways. Mr Ballard needs to be clear that the economics presented during the strategic roads review showed that the scheme provides value for money within a net present value of £14.5 million and a benefit to cost ratio of 2.25. It is important to recognise that, because it includes assessments of environmental considerations. In addition, as I said to Lord James a moment ago, the environmental baseline information is being updated. Those matters are important, but the crucial aspect is the ability to tackle congestion in Dalkeith, which is exactly what the bypass will do.

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M74 Extension (Costs)

To ask the Scottish Executive what its current estimate is for the cost of the M74 motorway extension. (S2O-7804)

The cost of the scheme is expected to lie within the range £375 million to £500 million.

At the risk of hearing the minister again defend the Executive's obsession with road building, may I ask him whether the current cost of the project—which has never been subject to a multimodal study—includes additional security elements resulting from any direct action that may take place? Does it account for inflation since the cost estimate was originally made? Does it take account of any problems arising from construction capacity moving south because of the London Olympics? If not, the M74 extension is looking increasingly as if it offers poor value for money compared with other Glasgow projects, such as Glasgow crossrail, which have never had the same kind of political momentum behind them.

The devolved Government is proud of spending more on public transport projects than has ever been spent before. That is important to us and we have moved our policy forward in a progressive way to tackle Scotland's rail and public transport needs and to strike a balance between road and rail. Mr Harvie is, not for the first time, completely wrong in his assessment of our transport plans. In answer to his ridiculous question about direct action, I can tell him that those are operational matters for the police. It would be extraordinary to be drawn into a we're-all-doomed analysis. It is important to keep a sense of perspective on the matter, which is what we are doing.