Chamber and committees

Four hundred and sixty-three existing adult mandatory life prisoners are affected by the transitional provisions of the Convention Rights (Compliance) (Scotland) Act 2001, in as much as they will require to have a punishment part set at a hearing before the High Court of Justiciary. In addition, there are 24 such prisoners, who have the right under the Act, to waive their entitlement to a hearing, in which case their punishment parts will be deemed to have been fixed by other methods set out in the Act. The Scottish ministers are required to refer the cases of those affected to the High Court of Justiciary but arrangements for the hearings are the responsibility of the court. At this time the court is unable accurately to forecast when the hearings will be completed.

The marketing of Scotland as a golf tourism destination is and will continue to be a high priority. VisitScotland has reviewed its marketing strategy in the light of the 11 September events and will target its campaigns carefully in order to maximise opportunities. Funding for VisitScotland is at a record level.

The letters of 11 May and 13 June to which I referred in my earlier answer of 29 August provided detailed comments on the proposals contained in the Arbroath Aid Package and suggestions as to how these proposals could be taken forward by Angus Council and Scottish Enterprise Tayside. Since this exchange of correspondence took place, the First Minister met with the Member for Angus on 23 August to discuss measures to promote economic development in Angus, and Scottish Executive officials met with representatives of Angus Council and Scottish Enterprise Tayside on 3 September to discuss progress in implementing the Arbroath Aid Package proposals.

The First Minister responded to Angus Council and partners concerning the Arbroath Aid Package proposals in his letter of 11 May 2001. In addition I myself wrote to the council and to Scottish Enterprise Tayside about the Arbroath Aid Package proposals on 13 June 2001.

The Executive is working with the UK Government to ensure that this important task is completed at the earliest possible opportunity.

In agreement with the Scottish Executive, the UK Government has made representations to the European Union on the fishmeal issue throughout the legislative process. As a result fishmeal has not been banned from feeding to non-ruminant livestock. The UK has raised the possibility of a relaxation of the ban on feeding fishmeal to ruminants in the Standing Veterinary Committee and the Council. In the Agricultural Council of 19 June the Commission promised to review this ban once a test had been validated that is capable of differentiating between animal and fish protein in feed. The UK uses an ELISA to test compound animal feedingstuffs for the presence of mammalian protein, but this test has not yet been validated. Until this problem can be resolved we have no option but to implement the Community ban.The scientific basis for the ban on the use of fishmeal in ruminant feeds came from the EU Scientific Steering Committee, who considered possible scientific reasons for a general feed ban on meat and bone meal (MBM) to all farmed animals on 27/28 November 2000. Their opinion, which was published on the 29 November, stated that the risk of propagation of BSE and other TSEs was increased by the possibility of cross-contamination of animal feed. Cross contamination with possibly BSE contaminated ruminant MBM is a serious problem. A ban on the use of MBM containing feed for animals minimises this risk.

As required by the Scotland Act, the Executive will observe its EU obligations and intends to introduce shortly legislation that will ban the use of fishmeal in ruminant feeds as of 1 August this year. However, the Executive will continue to press for the return of fishmeal in ruminant rations as soon as the potential for cross-contamination to occur can be discounted by a suitable testing protocol, which the EU is committed to pursuing.

The Executive announced on 23 November that Angus Council would receive £2.8 million, included in its capital allocations, to enable work to start on the Montrose Bridge replacement project. We will continue to work with Angus Council on this matter.

There are no plans for a review of local authority boundaries.

Each infected premises is counted as a single case for counting purposes.