Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S3W-08957

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 7 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how the appropriate methods of disposal of compact fluorescent light bulbs are brought to the attention of the public.

Distributors of household electricaland electronic equipment, including compact fluorescent light bulbs, mustprovide their customers with information on a number of aspects relating to theresponsible disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE),including:

the environmental impacts ofhazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment ;

the benefits of separatecollection and environmentally sound recovery and the reasons why they shouldnot dispose of WEEE with other forms of waste they produce;

the meaning of the “crossedout wheeled bin” product marking symbol;

how they can contributetowards re-use, recycling and other forms of recovery of WEEE, and

the arrangements throughwhich customers can dispose of WEEE free of charge.

The government expectsdistributors selling household electrical and electronic equipment to play anactive part in promoting the benefits of free take-back of household WEEE. Theymust provide this information to customers on their retail premises, if theyhave one, or by some other means connected to their sales, eg, on their companywebsite.

Question reference: S3W-09158

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 7 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is legal to hunt farmed mammals with dogs.

The Protection of WildMammals (Scotland) Act 2002 makes it an offence to hunt wild mammalswith dogs. Wild mammals include wild mammals which have escaped, or beenreleased, from captivity and any mammal which is living in the wild. Therefore,it would not be an offence under this legislation to hunt farmed animals withdogs unless they were living in the wild.

However, farmed animals areprotected under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, which makesit an offence to cause them unnecessary suffering.

Question reference: S3W-08954

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 7 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive what obligations rest with retailers selling compact fluorescent light bulbs with regard to their disposal.

The Waste Electrical andElectronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations 2006 provide that distributors(including retailers) shall be responsible for providing an in-store take backservice for customers in relation to specified WEEE or subscribe to adistributor take back scheme which arranges for collection from a designatedcollection facility, for example, a local authority recycling centre, and toadvise customers of these arrangements. The regulations also impose arecord-keeping obligation on distributors in respect of the volumes of WEEEreturned.

Question reference: S3W-08955

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 7 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how many designated collection facilities exist where compact fluorescent light bulbs may be disposed of for treatment and recycling.

Question reference: S3W-08956

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 25 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 7 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive whether every local authority offers at least one designated collection facility where compact fluorescent light bulbs may be disposed of for treatment and recycling.

Question reference: S3W-09378

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 01 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 7 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how much each local authority received from the European Languages Grant in each year of the 2004 spending review.

The individual allocations perlocal authority for 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 are detailed in the table below.

	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08
Aberdeen City	£121,949	£118,122	£121,150
Aberdeenshire	£236,510	£231,502	£237,438
Angus	£96,693	£94,924	£97,358
Argyll and Bute	£86,779	£84,275	£86,436
Clackmannanshire	£38,245	£36,593	£37,532
Dumfries and Galloway	£142,454	£138,459	£142,010
Dundee City	£94,863	£92,178	£94,542
East Ayrshire	£100,303	£97,019	£99,507
East Dunbartonshire	£93,487	£88,971	£91,252
East Lothian	£75,317	£74,085	£75,985
East Renfrewshire	£83,279	£82,386	£84,499
Edinburgh, City of	£236,542	£230,552	£236,464
Eilean Siar	£31,053	£30,507	£31,289
Falkirk	£111,726	£109,924	£112,743
Fife	£272,872	£265,627	£272,438
Glasgow City	£356,406	£344,352	£353,182
Highland	£218,364	£213,955	£219,441
Inverclyde	£62,396	£60,118	£61,660
Midlothian	£66,393	£64,945	£66,611
Moray	£81,958	£80,041	£82,094
North Ayrshire	£109,939	£106,861	£109,601
North Lanarkshire	£261,245	£255,661	£262,217
Orkney Islands	£22,980	£22,356	£22,929
Perth and Kinross	£118,210	£116,342	£119,325
Renfrewshire	£132,570	£128,719	£132,020
Scottish Borders	£100,349	£98,470	£100,995
Shetland Islands	£28,038	£27,496	£28,201
South Ayrshire	£87,352	£85,099	£87,281
South Lanarkshire	£243,310	£237,701	£243,796
Stirling	£76,007	£74,687	£76,603
West Dunbartonshire	£70,954	£68,326	£70,078
West Lothian	£136,218	£134,591	£138,042
Jordanhill School (Glasgow)	£5,239	£5,152	£5,284

Question reference: S3W-09385

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 01 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 7 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how much each local authority received from the Early Years and Childcare Workforce Development Fund in each year of the 2004 spending review.

Whilst local government had flexibilityto allocate other resources to this area, the specific amounts allocated to eachlocal authority from the Early Years and Childcare Workforce Development Fund ineach year of the 2004 spending review were as follows:

Council	2005-06 (£)	2006-07 (£)	2007-08 (£)
Aberdeen City	212,080	207,820	207,139
Aberdeenshire	285,322	285,311	285,446
Angus	130,829	133,153	132,757
Argyll and Bute	112,122	108,996	108,045
Clackmannanshire	71,859	74,254	74,102
Dumfries and Galloway	172,775	165,194	163,536
Dundee City	160,503	155,503	154,932
East Ayrshire	150,951	147,807	147,030
East Dunbartonshire	139,746	134,786	133,702
East Lothian	122,650	128,567	128,780
East Renfrewshire	124,272	128,100	128,634
Edinburgh, City of	432,368	431,600	433,356
Eilean Siar	43,051	44,572	44,269
Falkirk	176,654	181,674	182,387
Fife	404,292	401,172	402,631
Glasgow City	619,720	598,132	598,037
Highland	247,512	244,110	243,448
Inverclyde	107,200	106,645	106,043
Midlothian	111,908	115,960	116,351
Moray	114,702	113,479	112,340
North Ayrshire	169,127	164,643	163,668
North Lanarkshire	387,629	394,791	396,182
Orkney Islands	36,751	39,111	38,824
Perth and Kinross	159,997	165,738	166,767
Renfrewshire	205,511	205,235	205,157
Scottish Borders	130,170	136,120	136,583
Shetland Islands	42,301	44,960	44,936
South Ayrshire	129,963	130,096	129,929
South Lanarkshire	353,880	353,111	352,638
Stirling	109,389	114,756	115,313
West Dunbartonshire	120,332	119,128	118,967
West Lothian	214,434	225,473	228,072
	6,000,000	6,000,000	6,000,000

Question reference: S3W-09397

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 01 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 6 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how much each local authority received from the Piers and Harbours Grant in each year of the 2004 spending review.

The information requestedis as follows:

	2005-06	2006-07	Total
	£000	£000	£000
Argyll and Bute Council	95	2,698	2,793
The Highland Council	1,835	412	2,247
Orkney Islands Council	352	965	1,317
Total	2,282	4,075	6,357

Only five local authoritiesare eligible for Piers and Harbours Grants under existing arrangements, namely Argylland Bute, Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar, Highland, Orkney and Shetlands Councils.

Grant payments toindividual local authorities in 2007-08 will be made available when the ScottishGovernment’s annual accounts for 2007-08 are published later this year.

Question reference: S3W-09387

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 01 February 2008
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 6 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how much funding each local authority received for adoption services in each year of the 2004 spending review.

Funding allocationswere not calculated with specific reference to adoption services within grantaided expenditure for these years. Whilst local government had flexibility to allocateother resources to this area, the specific amounts allocated to local governmentunder the more general heading of Casework and Related Administration – Children,which would include adoption services, were as follows:

2005-06: £71.5 million

2006-07: £73.4 million

2007-08: £73.9million.

Question reference: S3W-08878

Asked by: Elaine Murray, MSP for Dumfries, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 24 January 2008
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 February 2008

To ask the Scottish Executive how funding, previously allocated under the Early Years and Childcare Workforce Development Fund, will be allocated in 2008-09, broken down by local authority and also expressed as a percentage of total funding for this purpose.