Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive has madeprovision for the use of electronic monitoring across a wide range of options, includingas a condition of licence as imposed by the Parole Board, as a condition of probationor a drug treatment and testing order imposed by the courts, to support a restrictionof liberty order imposed by the courts and as a condition of bail in particularcircumstances in four pilot courts. Electronic monitoring also supports the earlyrelease of certain short term prisoners as part of a home detention curfew licence.In addition, provisions in the Custodial Sentences and Weapons Bill will enableScottish ministers to impose electronic monitoring as a condition of a communitylicence for the new combined sentence.

The Scottish Executivesupports local authorities’ net revenue expenditure on roads maintenancethrough the core local government finance settlement. Spending Review 2004added a further £60 million in both 2006-07 and 2007-08 to the Roads and TransportGrant Aided Expenditure (GAE) allocations, the majority of which was added tothe roads maintenance GAEs. Total GAE for roads maintenance will amount to £320million by 2007-08 and this represents an increase of 23% on the 2004-05 allocationto local authorities. Each council is responsible for the maintenance andimprovement of local roads in its area and it is entirely a matter for councilsto decide what priority is given to local roads and to allocate the resourcesavailable to them accordingly.

We will consider COSLA’ssubmission in respect of the 2007 Spending Review including any points on localroads maintenance at the appropriate time.

The planned programme oftransport infrastructure schemes may be found on the Scottish Executive and theTransport Scotland websites at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/and http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/index.aspx?pageID=1.

All these projects areconsidered as a priority, which is why they have been included in the programmeof committed projects.

We have no plans to changethe regulation of Saver fares in Scotland. Both Transport Scotland and First Scotrail are beingkept informed of discussions between the Department for Transport and trainoperators about potential changes to saver regulation in England. TheDepartment for Transport is also aware of Scottish Ministers’ objective toincrease the proportion of journeys between Scotland and England madeby rail.

No decision on fares forEARL has been taken yet. We have set out our plans to review fares across Scotlandduring 2007. That review will take into account the views expressed inParliament when discussing the EARL project on the appropriate level of faresfor the new services.

Rail Security is reserved tothe UK Government.

However, Transport Scotland,through the First ScotRail Franchise, deliver schemes which improve security onFirst ScotRail trains, and at stations managed by First ScotRail.

The franchise agreement includescapital expenditure worth over £4 million for improvements relating to securityat stations and a programme of CCTV fitment to trains. In addition, I recently announcedthe Small Rail Projects Fund which includes proposals for investment atstations and on trains which will improve railway security in Scotland.

Orkney Islands Council and local MSP, Mr Jim Wallace QC, have madea number of representations to the Executive on matters connected with thelocal government funding settlement. Representations may also have beenreceived from others from time to time. A full list of all suchrepresentations, and by whom they were made, is not maintained centrally.

Mr Wallace and, from theCouncil, Councillor Stephen Hagan, Councillor Keith Johnson and Mr HarryGarland, the Director of Community Social Services, have made several recentrepresentations about specific aspects of the settlement, in particular care servicesfor the elderly.

There have also been tworecent meetings with representatives from the council and Mr Wallace to discussa range of issues, including: elements of the settlement and the delivery ofservices for the elderly. The first of these meetings took place on 20 December 2006with the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care and then there was a subsequent meeting with theDeputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Businesson the 2 February 2007.

I met the Secretary of Statefor Transport on 6 October 2006 where we discussed road pricing issues. Officials of the Scottish Executive also regularly discuss road pricing issues with officialsat the Department for Transport.

The Scottish Executive hasno current plans to implement road pricing. There will be no road pricing inScotland on a Scotland-wide basis in the next four years of the Parliament.

Vehicle fuel duty is areserved matter.