Chamber and committees

Sustainable tourism or green tourism is critical to the development and maintenance of any successful tourism destination. VisitScotland encourages businesses across Scotland to take part in the GTBS and Going Green Schemes. They are also about to launch a programme of sustainable tourism activity across Scotland which aims to promote business growth through the development of sustainable tourism practices. This work involves a number of other partners including Scottish Enterprise, the Energy Savings Trust and Scottish Natural Heritage. Currently, there are 15 accommodation providers and 12 visitor attractions in Ayrshire that participate in the Green Tourism Business Scheme.

I refer the member to the answer to question to S3W-31066 on 9 February 2010. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Planning authorities should set out in development plans a spatial framework for onshore wind farms of over 20 megawatts generating capacity. This should identify areas where the cumulative impact of existing and consented wind farms limits further development.

This information is not held centrally.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has recommended that a herpes zoster (shingles) vaccination programme be introduced to vaccinate people aged between 70 and 79, if a licensed vaccine is available at cost effective price.

The Scottish Government is now working with the Department of Health and the other devolved administrations on a procurement exercise to establish whether a cost effective vaccine can be obtained.

The information required to answer this question is not held centrally. Actual costs would depend on the definition and criteria used to determine eligibility as well as uptake of the exemption following any change to the list of eligible conditions.

However, this government believes that patients suffering any conditions not currently exempt from paying for prescriptions should benefit in the same way at the same time. For this reason, as well as many others, the government''s view remains that the fairest policy is to abolish charges for all patients “ no matter what condition they suffer from - on 1 April 2011. Cuts so far of over 60% in the price of PPCs and over 40% in the price of single prescriptions are delivering very real benefit to all patients who pay for their prescriptions including all those with long-term conditions, including cancer.

This information is not held centrally.

The performance of trunk road operating companies is monitored continually by the independent Performance Audit Group (PAG). During the recent severe weather PAG has been monitoring the delivery of winter service operations across the trunk road network. This monitoring will continue until the end of the winter season in May 2010. The results of this monitoring will be discussed with the operating companies and any recommendations regarding improvements to the delivery of winter service operations will be implemented in the operating companies'' winter service plans for next year.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-31042 on 4 February 2010. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.