Questions and answers

Question reference: S4W-05366

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2012
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 13 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been charged with attempting to purchase tobacco on behalf of someone under 18 since April 2011.

Information on the number of persons charged is not held centrally. Information on the number of persons proceeded against in Scottish courts in 2011-12 will not be available until publication of the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2011-12 Statistical Bulletin. This is due to be published in November 2012.

The dates of all Scottish Government Official and National Statistics publications are pre-announced, and the up to date list of future publications can be found at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Search/Forthcoming.

Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Services advise that 22 charges have been reported to them under the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act 2010 for buying or attempting to buy tobacco for persons under 18, since April 2011.

Note:

1. The information for this question has been extracted from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service's Case Management Database. The database is a live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to procurators fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies. If a Procurator Fiscal amends a charge submitted by a reporting agency the database will record details only of the amended charge.

2. The database is charge-based. The figures quoted therefore relate to the number of charges rather than the number of individuals charged or the number of incidents that gave rise to such charges.

Question reference: S4O-00661

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 February 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it welcomes the increase in the number of students from European Union countries receiving free higher education in Scotland's universities.

Question reference: S4O-00644

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 February 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the Parliament's agreement to motion S4M-01526 on 8 December 2011, whether it will explain its reasons for not carrying out a Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment on the proposed public health levy.

Question reference: S4O-00600

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it expects the 2011-12 financial outturn of NHS boards to demonstrate that they have operated within their budget allocation.

Question reference: S4W-04525

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people given a custodial sentence in cases involving domestic violence received a sentence of (a) three and (b) six months or less in each of the last three years.

Information on offence aggravations have been published and classified as “data being developed” alongside the 2010-11 Criminal Proceedings in Scotland statistical bulletin and some caution needs to be applied to these figures when comparing results across time or geographically.

We are working to increase our understanding of offence aggravations data and to assess and attempt to improve the consistency of recording of the data. It is anticipated that this work will be completed during 2012. Full details of any changes will be provided in subsequent publications of the Criminal Proceedings Bulletin. More details are available here:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/Datasets/CrimProcDatDev.

The available information on domestic abuse aggravations is given in the following table. Sentencing decisions are made by the judiciary based on all the facts and circumstances of the offence and offender.

Persons convicted for an offence with a domestic aggravator recorded, receiving a custodial sentence, 2008-09 to 2010-11:

Main Result of Proceedings	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
Sentence of 3 months or less:
Imprisonment	381	425	407
Young Offender Institution	22	33	36
All	403	458	443
Sentence over 3 months and less than 6 months:
Imprisonment	254	306	355
Young Offender Institution	13	21	21
All	267	327	376

Question reference: S4W-04524

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 December 2011
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 12 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been (a) prosecuted and (b) convicted in cases involving domestic violence in each of the last three years, broken down by manner of disposal.

Information on offence aggravations have been published and classified as “data being developed” alongside the 2010-11 Criminal Proceedings in Scotland statistical bulletin and some caution needs to be applied to these figures when comparing results across time or geographically.

We are working to increase our understanding of offence aggravations data and to assess and attempt to improve the consistency of recording of the data. It is anticipated that this work will be completed during 2012. Full details of any changes will be provided in subsequent publications of the Criminal Proceedings Bulletin. More details are available here:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/Datasets/CrimProcDatDev.

The available information on domestic abuse aggravations is given in the following table. Sentencing decisions are made by the judiciary based on all the facts and circumstances of the offence and offender.

Persons proceeded against and convicted for an offence¹ with a domestic aggravator² recorded, by disposal, 2008-09:

	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
Prosecutions	7,983	10,183	9,986
Convictions	7,108	8,846	8,545
Disposal:
Custody	793	950	1,015
Community sentence	1,434	1,797	1,690
Monetary	2,758	3,095	2,741
Admonished	2,055	2,906	2,916
Other	68	98	183

Notes:

1. Where main offence.

2. The data recording codes for aggravators changed on 10 March 2008. The recording of aggravators has improved over time therefore caution is needed when comparing changes over time.

Question reference: S4O-00579

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 January 2012

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to enter into discussions with the European Commission to establish the Commission's view of the status of an independent Scotland in relation to the European Union in advance of the proposed independence referendum.

Question reference: S4W-04333

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 14 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive whether local authorities have the power to impose a transient visitor levy or ‘bed tax’ on hotels and serviced accommodation providers and, if not, whether, in its view, the Scottish Parliament has the power to enact legislation which would enable local authorities to do so.

Question reference: S4O-00429

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 1 December 2011

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made with the development of a mortgage indemnity scheme to facilitate the purchase of new homes and how much funding it will commit to this.

Question reference: S4F-00290

Asked by: David McLetchie, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 November 2011
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 November 2011

To ask the First Minister to what extent attempts by the Scottish Executive to reduce its payroll costs through reductions in the number of its permanent staff are being undermined by the increased use of temporary staff.

Chamber and committees