Chamber and committees

The reply to which you refer was sent on 31 May 2000.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) is responsible for maintaining the National Contingency Plan for Marine Pollution from Shipping and Offshore Installations. The Merchant Shipping Act 1995, which is entirely reserved to Westminster, provides the legislative basis for the plan and policy responsibility for the matters that it covers rests with DETR. On the question of the local authority role in dealing with shoreline pollution, I understand that Lord Macdonald, Minister for Transport at the DETR, will shortly be writing about this matter to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Local Government Association of England and Wales.

Advice and assistance is already provided by the MCA to local authorities concerning their contingency plans. The MCA also provides training for appropriate staff employed by Scottish local authorities likely to be involved in oil spill response. When there is sufficient demand, courses covering purely Scottish requirements are held in Scotland.

Several arrangements are already in place to support local authorities confronted by the financial consequences of responding to oil pollution incidents of the magnitude of the Braer and Sea Empress. The Executive will liaise closely with any local authorities, which may find themselves in such circumstances and will offer appropriate assistance in support of claims for the recovery of clean-up costs.

Responsibility for the cost of clean-up rests with the polluter and procedures for the recovery of those costs form an important part of contingency planning. In the case of spills from oil tankers this would be from the International Oil Pollution Contingency Fund; otherwise, it would be from the owner of the vessel or oilrig. However, I recognise local authorities' concern that it frequently takes considerable time for costs to be recouped in this way. In this respect, the UK is in the lead in trying to update the international legal framework in order to provide a more effective means by which local authorities can receive timely and adequate payments of compensation for claims incurred as a result of marine pollution incidents. In certain cases it may also be possible to make funds available to a local authority under the Bellwin Scheme, for example, if it has to incur immediate revenue costs to safeguard life and property or to prevent suffering or severe inconvenience (such as shore properties becoming uninhabitable).

I have received no representations from fire brigades on this matter, either directly or through the Scottish Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council.

I replied to Mr Salmond's letters of 22 March and 1 May on 4 April and 5 June respectively.

I replied to your two letters on Monday 5 June 2000.

In accordance with their respective responsibilities, Grampian Health Board and Aberdeenshire Council have been investigating the outbreak of infection among young people who attended the Cub and Scout Camp at the New Deer Agricultural Showground over 26 and 27 May 2000.

The circumstances are that Grampian Health Board were notified, on the morning of Sunday 4 June, of a cluster of three cases of severe diarrhoea admitted to hospitals in Aberdeen over that weekend. One of the cases had been diagnosed as suffering from E.coli 0157 infection. All had attended the camp.

Immediate investigation, and contact with parents, established that a wider group of children, who had attended the camp, were suffering from gastro-enteritis and, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Scottish Executive in July 1999 on the investigation and control of outbreaks of foodborne disease, an Outbreak Control Team was set up, consisting of specialists in public health, environmental health, microbiology, infectious disease medicine and paediatrics. The Executive were also informed on that day of the developing situation.

At its first meeting on 4 June, the team set in train extensive investigations to detect the cause of the outbreak. The Procurator Fiscal has been informed in the normal way. Steps were also taken to provide advice on health and hygiene to parents of the young people attending the camp and to seek further information from them about symptoms and risk factors such as food consumption. The owners of the showground agreed to close it to campers until further notice.

Fifty-two cases have so far been identified with symptoms which consist principally of diarrhoea and/or vomiting. On the basis of microbiological results, there are now 18 confirmed cases of E.coli 0157 infection, of whom one is in hospital receiving dialysis.

The Scottish Executive has been keeping in close touch with the investigation. The Food Standards Agency is also maintaining contact with the local Outbreak Control Team and will publicise any food safety or other advice required, when the full facts are known. The Outbreak Control Team will ensure that the public, media and local MSPs are kept in touch with developments.

We are in the process of consulting the fishing industry to ascertain their views on the development of trade in fish quotas and the need for guidance on legal entitlement to quotas and licences under present legislation.The first meeting of a working group established to consider these issues was held on 11 April. I have arranged for a full copy of the papers tabled for discussion by the group to be made available to the Parliament's Information Centre. As I have already indicated in my reply to Mr Lochhead's questions on this issue (S1W-5315 and S1W-5316), I shall consider the working group's findings and recommendations and report to the Rural Affairs Committee in due course.

The numbers of successful Countryside Premium Scheme applications for each Rural Affairs Department Area Office in 1997, 1998 and 1999 are shown below:

	1997	1998	1999
Argyll & Western Isles	25	48	29
Grampian	62	111	32
Highland	15	15	24
Northern & Northern Isles	74	70	28
Perth & Kinross/Angus	82	76	23
South Eastern	101	96	35
South Western	69	62	53
Southern	48	23	0

The detailed design work for the improvement scheme at A90 Hatton Bends will be completed by the end of this year. It is anticipated that, subject to the satisfactory completion of the necessary statutory procedures, work will commence on site in 2001-02.