Aberdeen City Council (Transport)
The Scottish Government has had regular recent discussions with Aberdeen City Council over a number of transport issues, which include public transport, road and rail infrastructure, hydrogen infrastructure, and learning technologies and electric vehicle infrastructure.
I understand that Aberdeen City Council is asking the Scottish Government for funding for preparatory work or a feasibility study in order to introduce trams to Aberdeen. Given the fiasco that happened here in the city of Edinburgh over trams, the on-going work on the Aberdeen western peripheral route and the introduction of hydrogen buses in Aberdeen, would it not be wiser to wait and see the impact of those three projects before committing scarce taxpayers’ money to that request?
The member will be aware, of course, that the Government did not support the Edinburgh trams project at the outset. Following a vote of the Parliament, however, it supported the project to the tune of £0.5 billion. I am aware that Aberdeen City Council has instructed its officers to open discussions with Transport Scotland officials on proposals for cross-city transport connections in the council’s strategic infrastructure plan.
I thank the minister for those comments and I am sure that Aberdeen City Council will approach him on those terms. Does the minister accept that the options on the table need not be confined to one particular form of rail link and that a rail link that could be built economically and effectively could make a real difference to the connectivity of Aberdeen airport? Will the minister agree to join the council in considering the feasibility of different options, clearly recognising that if he does so, he will have an opportunity to influence the terms of that study?
As I said in my response to Maureen Watt, I think that this is purely an Aberdeen City Council initiative but I have gone so far as to say that Transport Scotland officials will discuss the council proposals with the city council officials. That is as far as I would want to go in relation to that.
Environmental Noise
The Scottish Government is currently consulting on noise action plans that are required under the environmental noise directive. Those plans set out a suite of proposed actions, building on the strategic noise maps that were published earlier this year for the principal agglomerations: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen; main airports; and major road and rail networks. The consultations close on 18 December.
The Edinburgh draft noise action plan identifies Calder Gardens in the Sighthill area of my constituency as an Edinburgh road candidate noise management area. The directive requires member states to bring about measures intended to avoid, prevent or reduce exposure to environmental noise. Is the minister concerned that further house building in the west of the city and the resulting traffic increase in the Calders area will add to the environmental noise problem?
I remind members that I have previously provided advice—as noted in my register of interests—regarding education aspects of proposed developments in the west of Edinburgh.
Minister for Town Centres
As Minister for Local Government and Planning, I have ministerial lead for town centres and responsibility for the delivery of the town centre action plan, which was published on 7 November. That plan is a cross-Government response to the recommendations in the external advisory group report, “Community and Enterprise in Scotland’s Town Centres”. The plan will stimulate the debate on the future for Scotland’s town centres and encourage and support action from across the wider public, private and community sectors.
I welcome Derek Mackay’s appointment as the minister for town centres. I appreciate his taking the time to speak to the cross-party group on towns and town centres, and I wish him well in his new role.
I welcome Margaret McCulloch’s welcome of my appointment to that dedicated post, to which I will give 100 per cent attention. I engage with a range of stakeholders on the town centre agenda because it is so important to the people of Scotland, and I congratulate the member on the work that she does in the cross-party group, which I was delighted to attend.
I, too, had better welcome the minister to his position, or I will be in trouble.
There is some welcome news on retail sales in Scotland, but our response should involve more than just retail. Our plan is about community action to deliver innovative solutions to town centre issues, among a range of other actions that we will undertake. I commit to fulfil Christine Grahame’s request to deliver such a website to support our community groups in progressing their local plans.
The minister will be aware that South Ayrshire Council has in the past gratefully received support from the town centre regeneration fund. Are there—or will there be—further funds available to concentrate on a high street where regeneration is still much needed?
I remind John Scott that the concordat with local government ensures that the de-ring fencing of a substantial amount of funds has given local authorities the ability to deliver their local economic development function. As part of the town centre action plan we have announced new resources, not least the town centre housing fund, which aims to increase the residential footfall in our town centres.
Superfast Broadband
Contracts for the delivery of next-generation broadband were awarded earlier this year. A dedicated website—www.scotlandsuperfast.com—was launched in October to provide up-to-date information on deployment plans throughout Scotland. The first areas that will go live, in Inverness-shire and Moray, were announced recently; those will be among the first areas to be able to access fibre broadband services from early next year.
The cabinet secretary will know that a number of my constituents have expressed disappointment at the speed of their broadband. Earlier in the year, Fife Council stated that it hoped that more than half of the deployment of superfast broadband in the area would be completed in the early stages of the project. Can the cabinet secretary advise whether Fife Council’s targets are realistic and confirm that North East Fife will not be left as a technological white space by 2015?
Rod Campbell is assiduous in representing the interests of his constituents on this issue. Our current plans suggest that large areas of Fife will benefit earlier in the project. We are not able to confirm precise percentages at this stage, because the plans are subject to survey and will change as broadband is rolled out, but we are absolutely clear that we want no area to be left behind, including North East Fife. We want to ensure that as many people as possible have access to next-generation broadband. Where that is not possible, we have committed to ensuring that everyone within the project’s intervention area has access to at least a basic level of broadband connectivity. There is real ambition and determination behind the project, and I am happy to keep Rod Campbell updated as further detail of the roll-out plan becomes available.
NHS Grampian (Primary Medical Facilities)
Scottish planning policy makes clear that, when identifying locations for new housing, planning authorities must take account of the availability of infrastructure, including community facilities. Under Scottish planning legislation, health boards are key agencies in the preparation of development plans and should be actively engaged with planning authorities in the process of planning for new development and the growth of communities.
General practitioner practices in the north-east have some of the largest patient lists in the country, and many serve growing populations. Chapelton of Elsick could provide 8,000 homes but, as the cabinet secretary has just acknowledged, there are no confirmed plans to build medical facilities in the new town. Developers have offered a retail unit for a GP surgery for the first 800 houses and will set aside ground for a medical centre as the community grows. However, a medical centre would cost millions and it is unclear where the funding would come from. Residents therefore fear that existing healthcare services such as Portlethen medical centre, which is already among the busiest in the country with nearly 14,000 patients, could be overwhelmed. Given that health boards were recently stripped of their powers to allocate capital funding, will the cabinet secretary take responsibility and act to ensure that residents in and around Chapelton of Elsick can access high-quality healthcare in future?
Alison McInnes raises a number of valid points, particularly regarding the new development at Chapelton of Elsick. As I said in my first answer, the health board and local authority are in detailed discussion. The matter is for discussion between the health board and the local authority. If, after those discussions, the health board has to come to me to request additional funding, we would obviously look at any proposal, but the priority is for the responsible local organisations—namely, the health board and the local authority—to agree a way forward. We can then see whether Scottish Government intervention is needed and how we can help in implementing any proposals that are agreed.
Children’s Dental Health
Significant progress is being made on improving the oral health of children in Scotland. For example, the national dental inspection programme has found that the proportion of primary 1 children with no obvious decay experience had increased to 67 per cent in 2012, compared with 44.6 per cent in 2003, and that the proportion of primary 7 children with no obvious decay experience has risen to 72.8 per cent in 2013, compared with 52.9 per cent in 2005.
I thank the cabinet secretary for his comprehensive response and welcome the improvements and the progress that are being made. The success of the Government’s child oral health programme goes hand in hand with access to dental services. In Dumfries and Galloway there was a period before 2007 when accessing routine NHS dental treatment was almost impossible. What steps has the Government taken to increase access to NHS dentists?
This Government can be very proud of the steps that it has taken to improve access to NHS dentistry. For example, from 2007 to 2013, the period in question, the proportion of children and adults registered with an NHS dentist increased to 89.5 and 79.9 per cent. That compares to 67.2 and 46.2 per cent in 2007. Dumfries and Galloway has also shown a similar improvement from 2007 to 2013.
Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference
Last week, I led Scotland’s largest-ever delegation to the Abu Dhabi international petroleum exhibition and conference. More than 40 Scottish companies and higher education institutions were represented at one of the largest oil and gas events in the world.
I thank the minister for that comprehensive reply. It does not leave me an awful lot to follow up on, although I know that he has much more information in the pipeline. What future design and engineering work opportunities will there be for companies based in areas such as my Glasgow Anniesland constituency? Are we looking to training opportunities specifically as a consequence of the minister’s ADIPEC visit?
I will not attempt to lower the tone even further with another pun. Everywhere I went in ADIPEC, people had heard of the expertise and training for the oil and gas sector not only in Aberdeen but across the whole country. In fact, the UAE energy minister had been to Aberdeen on occasions in a previous life and knew exactly what expertise the country has.
Given Scotland’s expertise in training offshore workers, what is the Government doing to support training companies to attract international clients?
I thank the member for that question. Some higher education institutions attended the conference with us and, on top of that, we had representatives from the energy technology partnership. We have some of the best training academies for vocational on-hand training and we are working with them to put them in touch, through SDI, with companies from the middle east that have a huge investment in the North Sea, such as TAQA, to see how they can use that expert training that they will not get anywhere else. If those companies get that level of training and their workers are trained to drill in the North Sea, they will be able to drill anywhere in the world and that will help their global operations not only in Scotland, but in Canada, Nigeria and wherever else they take place. The Scottish Government, including Fergus Ewing and other ministers, take those training opportunities extraordinarily seriously. Scotland’s expertise will help companies across the world and we look to do that through the energy technology partnership, Nigg Skills Academy and the many other great training institutes that we have.