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-09063

Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 29 August 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is aware of the difficulties encountered by southbound disabled rail travellers at Lockerbie station and whether it has had any discussions with Railtrack or other bodies on the provision of disabled access to the station's southbound platform.

Question reference: S1W-09070

Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 28 August 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has had any discussions with HM Government about the production of guidelines for energy distributors requiring them to provide network access arrangements at reasonable cost for producers of energy in Scotland from renewable sources.

This is primarily a matter for the industry regulator and therefore is a reserved matter. In view of the importance placed by both the UK Government and the Scottish Executive in the promotion of renewable energy, the Department of Trade and Industry last year published a consultation paper containing proposals to facilitate access to distribution networks by all embedded generation including renewables. A DTI/Ofgem Working Group involving all the industry interests is now considering these issues for England and Wales. The Scottish Executive is represented on that Working Group and is consulting Ofgem's Scottish Office with a view to developing a Scottish solution to these issues. In the meantime as part of its review of Scottish electricity trading arrangements, Ofgem has proposed changes to generator connection charges.

Question reference: S1W-09072

Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2000
Current Status: Answered by Henry McLeish on 28 August 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Deputy Minister with responsbility for tourism intends to visit Moffat when he is in Dumfries & Galloway on 23 August 2000.

Question reference: S1W-09062

Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 28 August 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress it has made in setting up the Transport Advisory Group announced in March, to advise it on the transport needs of people with disabilities.

Question reference: S1W-09071

Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 28 August 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it keeps comparative statistics on major flooding incidents throughout Scotland and, if so, whether it will publish details for each of the last ten years for which figures are available and whether there is any national monitoring conducted centrally of such incidents.

Statistics on flooding incidents are not held centrally and therefore the details requested are not available.Whilst national monitoring is not undertaken, the Flood Prevention (Scotland) Act 1961, as amended in 1997, placed a duty on local authorities to publish biennial reports on flooding and flood prevention measures. These reports are required to include all incidents of flooding of land (other than agricultural land) in their area.

To date, I understand that all bar three local authorities have published their second biennial report as required by the 1961 Act. Of those which have not yet complied with their statutory duty to publish a report, Highland Council and Stirling Council are looking to publish their reports after the summer. No information has been received from the remaining authority, Falkirk Council, about their plans to publish their second report.

Question reference: S1W-09068

Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 August 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 28 August 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-4084 by Sarah Boyack on 1 February 2000, what progress has been made in achieving the targets for the proportion of energy used in Scotland that should come from renewable sources.

Question reference: S1W-08885

Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 July 2000
Current Status: Answered by Iain Gray on 21 August 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to abolish separate registration of nursing and residential care homes and create a single registration system covering both.

We are proposing to replace the current separate systems of registration of residential care and nursing homes with a new system registering both types as "care homes". This system will be operated by the proposed Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care. We intend to introduce legislation to achieve this change at the earliest opportunity. Our policy proposals related to this are set out in The Way Forward for Care (SE/2000/67) which was laid before Parliament on 5July 2000.

Question reference: S1W-08518

Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 July 2000
Current Status: Answered by Henry McLeish on 27 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it or the Scottish Tourist Board has detected any trends in visitor numbers or country of origin in the current tourist season and what comparisons are available with the last five years.

Trends in Overall Numbers of Visitors (British & Overseas (million))

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Number	11.62	12.52	13.2	11.94	12.41

Source: STBTrends in Visitors from Key Overseas Countries (000)

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
USA	418	406	429	470	435
Germany	239	237	239	211	190
Ireland	165	167	184	194	170
Canada	126	133	142	136	119
France	157	150	149	133	132
Netherlands	60	76	108	107	75
Belgium/Luxembourg	46	65	46	52	39
Italy	78	92	73	75	102
Spain	50	63	50	61	61
Switzerland	41	45	28	34	N/A
Australia	117	130	149	104	98
Japan	48	32	33	47	32

Source: STBData showing differences by country of origin for the current tourist season is not yet available.1999 figures show that there has been a 20% increase in domestic trips, and business visitors are staying longer and spending more. Unfortunately, some of the overseas markets are down. A New Strategy for Scottish Tourism sets ambitious targets to address this by increasing investment, improving marketing and ensuring that the rich potential of niche markets like golf are fully exploited.

Question reference: S1W-08545

Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 July 2000
Current Status: Answered by Henry McLeish on 19 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether there are seasonal variations in heating oil prices, whether it has had any discussions with Her Majesty's Government on the effect in Scotland of such variations on the socially excluded and, if so, what was the outcome.

Question reference: S1W-08517

Asked by: David Mundell, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 July 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sam Galbraith on 18 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive why funding for the Scottish School Board Association's Grapevine publication has been withdrawn.