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: S1W-07917

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 29 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will request Her Majesty's Government to make representations to the European Union regarding the current status of the Irish derogation on the level of somatic cell count for milk and what estimate it has made of the impact of this derogation on the Scottish dairy industry.

Question reference: S1W-07557

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 02 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Angus MacKay on 29 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive to provide a breakdown by department of monies spent on foreign travel by Ministers and officials since 6 May 1999.

Question reference: S1W-11257

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 29 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has made any representations to Her Majesty's Government in relation to the Charter of Fundamental Rights to be considered at the Nice Inter-governmental Conference.

Question reference: S1W-10665

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 October 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 27 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what the survival rate for breast cancer has been in Scotland for each of the last three years.

Information is not held centrally in the format requested.

Various methods are available for estimating survival and each has a different interpretation. Relative survival rates are essentially estimates of the net survival of a group of cancer patients in comparison with the overall survival of the general population and do not, as such, strictly indicate the actual percentage of patients alive at a given time after diagnosis.

The table below shows age standardised relative survival rates (%) one year after diagnosis for women aged 15 to 99 diagnosed in each of 1993, 1994 and 1995, the most recent years for which these data are available. Trends in Cancer Survival in Scotland 1971 to 1995, published in 1999, provides full information on survival from all cancers and can be accessed at www.show.scot.nhs.uk/isd.

Year of diagnosis	Age standardised relative survival (%) at 1 year
1993	90.8
1994	91.7
1995	91.9

Question reference: S1W-10666

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 October 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 27 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on research into breast cancer in the last three years in Scotland.

Question reference: S1W-11159

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 24 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive how much of the Science Research Investment Fund announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 5 July 2000 will be spent funding science in Scotland and what percentage of the money available under the fund this figure represents.

Question reference: S1W-11160

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 24 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will list, by department, the scientific programmes which it sponsors or funds.

The Executive sponsors or funds the following scientific programmes:

Health Department

The Chief Scientist Office (CSO) within the Scottish Executive Health Department is responsible for encouraging and supporting research to improve both the health of the people in Scotland and the services provided by the NHS. CSO commissions work in specific priority areas and supports research initiated by the research community in Scotland.

Rural Affairs Department

The Environment group (RAD) funds an annual programme of research which is largely applied research with a policy focus but includes a number of projects each year which contain significant elements of scientific research.

A programme of agricultural, biological and related research is funded by the Executive's Agricultural and Biological Research Group (ABRG).

Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Department

The Enterprise and Lifelong Department supports Higher Education research in Scotland through an allocation of funds, distributed by SHEFC, for research infrastructure. The Department also allocates funds towards technology transfer in Scotland. ELLD does not fund or sponsor any science research programmes grounded in the natural or physical sciences. It does support a departmental programme of policy-related social science and economic research in support of policy development and evaluation.

Education

The Education department has a rolling programme of policy related Social Science research on children and young people, social work, arts, culture and sports.

Development Department

The Development department has an annual research programme of policy-related research which draws largely upon the social sciences and which occasionally has a project which includes scientific research.

Justice Department

The Justice Department has a tri-annual programme of policy relevant research which is grounded in the social sciences.

Finance Department/Corporate Services/Executive Secretariat

The above departments do not regularly sponsor programmes of scientific research.

Question reference: S1W-11158

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 November 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sam Galbraith on 24 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what representations it has made to Her Majesty's Government in relation to the UN Climate Change Summit being held in The Hague during November 2000, particularly with regard to the Kyoto Protocol.

The Executive has worked closely with the United Kingdom Government in developing the United Kingdom negotiating strategy for the Sixth Conference of the Parties. Our aim is to reach an environmentally credible and effective outcome that will create the conditions to allow ratification and entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. Representatives of the Executive will be part of the United Kingdom delegation.

Question reference: S1W-04411

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 15 February 2000
Current Status: Answered by Angus MacKay on 23 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of the Scottish Block has been allocated to local authorities in each of the last three years and the current year and what the proportion is for each of the next two years.

The information is contained in the table. However, percentage shares between years are not directly comparable, due to transfers to and from the local government settlement and changes to other programmes within the Scottish Block.

% of Scottish Block/Total Budget allocated to local authorities
1997-98	39%
1998-99	38%
1999-2000	36%
2000-01	36%
2001-02	36%
2002-03	36%

Sources: Scotland's Budget Document 2000-01, Making a Difference for Scotland.

Question reference: S1W-10697

Asked by: Alex Neil, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 27 October 2000
Current Status: Answered by Angus MacKay on 23 November 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive when it will answer parliamentary question S1W-4411 which received a holding reply in February 2000.