Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive is responsible for the management and maintenance of trunk roads in Scotland, including measures to ensure the safety of users of those roads. The Executive has no specific plans to review the provision of safety measures outside schools on trunk roads. Safety on the trunk road network is continually monitored, including sections in close proximity to schools, to identify and implement any appropriate safety measures.

Local authorities have a duty under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to carry out a programme of measures designed to promote road safety on local roads. Decisions on specific measures, such as road markings, speed limits, sleeping policemen and other speed restrictions, in the proximity of schools to safeguard pupils, are matters for individual authorities.In May, the Executive made available additional resources, totalling £5.2 million, to enable local authorities to take forward a wide range of Safer Routes to School projects in the current financial year.

The Scottish Executive has no plans at present to alter the rates payable under the Farm Woodland Premium Scheme. There is a statutory requirement to review the rates every five years and that review is now underway.

The Better Payment Practice Group (BPPG), which includes Government and business representative organisations, promotes best payment practice across the UK. All companies, whether in receipt of public funds or not, should abide by the guidelines issued by the BPPG. These can be found on the group`s website at www.payontime.co.uk.

I have no plans to review the output of the A75 Route Action Plan.

This is a matter for Dumfries and Galloway Council.

The cost of the bike bus is currently £875 per week. The bus was commissioned on 22 June (the date of the official opening of the National Cycle Network Millennium Routes) and the cost to the end of August was £7,875.

I expect the bus to run until the end of October 2000, when Dumfries and Galloway Council anticipate that the related section of the National Cycle Network will be complete.

Patronage is monitored by the number of passengers. A passenger is a person with a bicycle. Between 29 June and 2 September the bike bus carried 644 passengers. The monitoring does not distinguish between holidaymakers and local residents.

Information is not available centrally in the form requested.

Cancer centres give high priority to starting treatment as soon as possible after clinical decisions on treatment options have been made. At present, waiting times for radiotherapy for all cancers - the time between treatment being agreed and starting - is in the range of one to eight weeks.

The Scottish Executive is providing additional funding to support the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, including funding specifically for radiotherapy equipment. I recently announced a rolling modernisation programme which will provide new linear accelerators and treatment planning simulators in all cancer centres, new and replacement MRI scanners, and imaging equipment to help further speed up diagnosis.

We do not propose to ask the Scottish Environment Protection Agency to waive the annual charge under the Groundwater Regulations 1998. It remains our policy that SEPA should move towards full recovery of the costs of regulation in line with the polluter pays principle.At £123, the annual charge, which covers the cost of periodic inspections for monitoring purposes, is considerably lower than originally proposed during public consultation on the Groundwater Regulations. A number of special arrangements have, nevertheless been made in Scotland to ease the burden of the Groundwater Regulations. Smaller farmers and crofters can share one set of charges by working collectively to dispose of spent sheep dip, thus reducing substantially the amount they pay each year. The annual charge was also waived in Scotland in 1999-2000 while SEPA determined the first tranche of applications.