Chamber and committees

I have asked Mr Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. Mr Cameron's response is as follows:

The Scottish Prison Service are still engaged in the process of disposing of the site in accordance with approved procedures for disposing of surplus government property, designed to secure the best price.

The SPS, which has engaged specialist property consultants to assist us, cannot properly divulge details of these negotiations as premature disclosure could prejudice a successful outcome for the taxpayer.

It is for local authorities to decide whether or not they wish to dispose of land or assets, in accordance with any relevant legislation. Where a council is proposing to dispose of land at a consideration less than the best that can reasonably be obtained, they must seek the consent of Scottish Ministers in accordance with Section 74(2) of the Local Government Scotland Act 1973. Section 74(2) does not require a local authority to obtain the consent of the Scottish Ministers to the disposal, at less than best price, of assets other than land. When considering any request from a council we judge the proposal against certain criteria, which I have already published in response to a previous written question (S1W-7981).

Under the terms of the Carltona doctrine (derived from the case of Carltona v Commissioner of Works (1948) 2 All ER 560), the acts of a competent official are the acts of the Minister. Therefore, there is no requirement for the letter of consent to be signed by the Minister in person, and it is quite sufficient that a competent official sign it.

We are not aware of research of this nature currently being carried out in Scotland. However, the CJD Surveillance Unit, based in the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, has confirmed that although they carry out a number of tests on blood and tissue samples taken from CJD victims, they do not routinely test for the disorders mentioned in the question. Therefore we have no evidence to date to establish a link.

I shall be announcing my decisions shortly in the light of the views expressed at the Healthy Scotland Convention on 3 July.

This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise. I will ask the Chairman of Scottish Enterprise to write to Mr Fergusson, a copy of which will be placed in the Scottish Parliament Reference Centre.

This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise. I will ask the Chairman of Scottish Enterprise to write to Mr Fergusson, a copy of which will be placed in the Scottish Parliament Reference Centre.

As stated in the Editors Notes section of the press release issued with the Locate in Scotland Annual Review:

"The figures for inward investment in Scotland - both from overseas and from the rest of the United Kingdom - have been collated in accordance with strictly defined criteria, and relate only to projects handled by Locate in Scotland and the Scottish Executive Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Department's Investment Assistance Division. There will of course have been other inward investments during the year in which neither LiS nor the Scottish Executive was directly involved.

It should be noted that the planned investment and jobs figures are those provided by the companies concerned at the time of the investment decision. A significant number of additional jobs are also created indirectly in the local economy. All project figures reported in this review are based on company announcements during the year. Projects can be deferred or even cancelled because of adverse trading conditions. In the past, we have suggested a rule of thumb that around two-thirds of all announced jobs actually come to fruition. At the request of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, a detailed analysis was undertaken on projects announced between April 1991 and March 1998. This showed the outturn figure to be rather higher, at 73%. The success of many of the past inward investments into Scotland is further evidenced by the fact that as much as half of our cases in recent years involved expansion and up-grading projects by existing investors".

I am pleased to advise that I have met personally with a number of these investing companies since their original project announcement. Most are on, or indeed ahead of, target in the implementation of their project. Others have found their initial experience in Scotland so positive that they are already discussing with my officials, the possibility of expanding their project beyond the scale originally envisaged.

The principal form of assistance available under the government's regional policy is Regional Selective Assistance (RSA). Payments are released in instalments only after the achievement of capital expenditure and job creation/safeguarding milestones which are specified in the formal offer of grant assistance.

Details of the financial assistance offered to individual companies are regarded as commercially confidential when a project is first announced. Brief details of all offers of Regional Selective Assistance of £75,000 or over are, however, published in Labour Market Trends in the quarter after the first instalment of grant is paid.

The fee of £100 is intended to cover the full costs of administering each licence application including the collection of the fee itself, which accounts for a small proportion of the total cost.