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: S2W-23351

Asked by: Brian Adam, MSP for Aberdeen North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 7 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will ensure that patients who have been deregistered from NHS dental practices are notified of local dental waiting lists.

Question reference: S2W-23350

Asked by: Brian Adam, MSP for Aberdeen North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 7 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any evidence of external commercial interests actively encouraging dentists to move from the NHS.

Question reference: S2W-23321

Asked by: Brian Adam, MSP for Aberdeen North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 6 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on alcohol abuse awareness campaigns in each year since 1999.

The annual spend on alcoholabuse awareness campaigns since 1999 is as follows:

Year	Alcohol Awareness Funding
1999-2000	£25,000
2000-01	£469,970
2001-02	£315,086
2002-03	£1,073,516
2003-04	£833,140
2004-05	£744,000

Question reference: S2W-23165

Asked by: Brian Adam, MSP for Aberdeen North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 10 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 6 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the options being considered as part of the review of neurosurgery across Scotland include neurosurgeons continuing to be based in Aberdeen and providing a range of neurosurgical procedures in that area.

Question reference: S2W-23189

Asked by: Brian Adam, MSP for Aberdeen North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 6 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how much rent each local authority has lost in each year since 1999 as a result of council house voids.

The following table providesthe information requested for each financial year since 1999-2000.

Rent Lost as a Result ofUnlet Houses

Local Authority Area	1999-2000 (£ Million)	2000-01 (£ Million)	2001-02 (£ Million)	2002-03 (£ Million)	2003-04 (£ Million)	2004-05 (£ Million)	2005-06 (estimate²) (£ Million)
Scotland	33.6	36.5	39.8	40.2	28.6	25.8	25.4
Aberdeen City	1.7	2.0	2.8	2.9	3.1	3.3	3.2
Aberdeenshire	0.3	0.5	0.9	0.8	0.8	0.7	0.8
Angus	0.2	0.3	0.4	0.6	0.5	0.4	0.5
Argyll and Bute	0.0	0.4	0.5	0.6	0.7	0.6	0.6
Clackmannanshire	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.4	0.6	0.5	0.6
Dumfries and Galloway ¹	0.4	0.5	0.5	0.5	na	na	na
Dundee City	3.0	3.0	2.4	1.5	1.3	1.0	0.9
East Ayrshire	1.2	1.6	1.7	1.6	1.5	1.4	1.6
East Dunbartonshire	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1
East Lothian	0.3	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.3	0.2	0.3
East Renfrewshire	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.2
Edinburgh, City of	2.1	2.3	2.0	2.0	1.8	1.4	1.6
Eilean Siar, Comhairle nan	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1
Falkirk	0.7	0.9	1.0	1.0	1.2	1.2	1.1
Fife	1.7	1.8	2.1	2.5	2.4	2.5	2.3
Glasgow City ¹	10.7	9.0	9.7	10.5	na	na	na
Highland	0.5	0.8	0.9	0.9	0.9	0.9	0.9
Inverclyde	1.5	1.2	1.1	1.3	2.2	2.7	1.7
Midlothian	0.1	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.1	0.1	0.1
Moray	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.2	0.2	0.1	0.1
North Ayrshire	0.6	0.6	0.7	0.6	0.4	0.2	0.3
North Lanarkshire	2.1	2.0	1.7	1.8	1.7	1.6	2.1
Orkney Islands	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Perth and Kinross	0.3	0.4	0.6	0.6	0.8	0.5	0.4
Renfrewshire	1.4	1.9	1.7	1.2	0.9	0.9	1.1
Scottish Borders ¹	0.4	0.6	0.7	0.6	na	na	na
Shetland Islands	0.2	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.4	0.4	0.4
South Ayrshire	0.4	0.5	0.6	0.7	0.6	0.5	0.5
South Lanarkshire	1.0	2.1	2.8	3.1	3.1	1.4	1.3
Stirling	0.4	0.4	0.5	0.5	0.4	0.4	0.3
West Dunbartonshire	1.5	1.9	2.3	1.9	1.8	2.1	2.1
West Lothian	0.2	0.4	0.6	0.7	0.4	0.3	0.3

Source: Information fromcouncils’ housing revenue accounts published by the Executive in Table 9 ofLocal Authority Housing Income and Expenditure Bulletins.

Notes:

1. Properties transferred tohousing associations from 2003-04.

2. Data for 2005-06 areestimates provided at the beginning of the financial year.

Question reference: S2W-23324

Asked by: Brian Adam, MSP for Aberdeen North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 3 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on drug awareness campaigns in each year since 1999.

While drug campaign materials are funded from a variety of sources within the Executive, the bulk of expenditure on drug awareness campaigns is on advertising and media (since 2002-03, through the Know the Score drugs communication strategy).

Drugs advertising campaign expenditure since 1999 has been as follows:

Year	Total Expenditure
1999-2000	There was no campaign that year
2000-01	£54,114
2001-02	£1,175,509
2002-03	£1,505,490
2003-04	£909,728
2004-05	£1,237,704

Question reference: S2W-23326

Asked by: Brian Adam, MSP for Aberdeen North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 3 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how many motor vehicles have been seized by police since the introduction of recent anti-social behaviour legislation.

Question reference: S2W-23355

Asked by: Brian Adam, MSP for Aberdeen North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 3 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on coastal protection in each year since 1999 and what schemes have benefited from Executive support, showing the monies they have been granted.

The total amount provided by the Executive, to date, in grant support to local authorities for coast protection measures since 1999 is £4,428,182.56. Further information on the amount spent each year since 1999, and on the schemes that have benefited from Executive grant support, is provided in the following tables.

Financial Year	Amount Paid
1999-2000	0
2000-01	17,340.94
2001-02	1,585,327.04
2002-03	130,096.90
2003-04	807,731
2004-05	1,103,619.11
2005-06	784,067.57

Council	Scheme Name	Total Amount Paid to Date
Angus	Carnoustie	523,514.36
	Milton Mill, Monifieth	43,206.31
Fife	East Wemyss	822,500.35
	West Wemyss	625,496.55
	Dysart	507,419.24
Aberdeenshire	Stonehaven Bay	29,171.58
Highland	Wick	1,876,874.17

Question reference: S2W-23354

Asked by: Brian Adam, MSP for Aberdeen North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 2 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive what support it has provided to local authorities to attract more cruise liners to visit Scottish ports.

Cruise liners bring a significantnumber of visitors to particular areas of Scotland during the year. While no specific support is available to local authoritiesto help them attract cruise liners, VisitScotland is commissioning research whichwill assess both the market and the economic benefits of cruise tourism to Scotland. The findings from this research should be availableby the middle of next year.

Question reference: S2W-23043

Asked by: Brian Adam, MSP for Aberdeen North, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 February 2006
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 2 March 2006

To ask the Scottish Executive in which European Council meetings its ministers have led the UK delegation since May 1999, broken down by (a) minister, (b) subject discussed and (c) decisions taken.

The following table providesthe information requested:

Date, Council and Lead Minister	Subjects Discussed	Decisions Taken
8-06-2000: Education Council:	1. The future challenges and training objectives of education systems in the learning society.	1. To establish the European Year of Languages 2001.
Nicol Stephen	2. Report of education ministers to the Stockholm European Council in spring 2001.	2. That education and training policies would play a key part in follow up of Lisbon European Council.
	3. The e-learning initiative.	3. Need for education ministers to feed into the Luxembourg Employment Process.
	Also Considered:
	4. Quality indicators and evaluation in school education.
	5. Recommendation on Mobility within the Community.
12-02-2001:	1. Strategies for lifelong learning.	To adopt a report on the concrete future objectives of education and training systems, and to discuss the work programme arising from the report at the next Education Council meeting.
Employment and Youth Council:	Also considered:
Nicol Stephen	2. Community Action Programme.
	3. Leonardo da Vinci.
	4. European Year of Languages 2001.
	5.Trans-European co-operation scheme for higher education.
5-06-2001:	1. The EU public health framework programme.	To include certain rare diseases in the scope of the public health framework programme, and to call on member states to build on existing work on surveillance and prevention of all Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies as they affect human health.
Health Council: Susan Deacon	2. Misuse of alcohol by children and young people.
	3. Proposals for a tobacco Advertising Directive.
	4. Research and information exchange on vCJD.