- Asked by: Des McNulty, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 February 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 28 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the First Minister, his private office officials or any of his special advisers have met Mr Donald Macdonald or representatives of his company and, if so, what the dates of any such meetings were, whether any matter referred to in the planning application in Aviemore in which Mr Macdonald or his company had an interest, or the adjudication of that application by the planning authority, or matters related to planning applications or roads in the Aviemore area, were discussed and what written records have been kept.
Answer
With regard to the First Minister and ministers, I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-9043 on 25 February 2008. None of the First Minister''s Private Office officials or any of his special advisers has met Mr Donald Macdonald or representatives of his company.
All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Des McNulty, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Monday, 04 February 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 28 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the First Minister, his private office officials or any of his special advisors have met or had any contact by telephone or email with the Cairngorms National Park Authority regarding any matter referred to in the planning application in Aviemore in which Mr Donald Macdonald had an interest, or the adjudication of that application by the planning authority or matters related to planning applications or roads in the Aviemore area; if so, when such meetings, conversations or exchanges took place, what issues were discussed and what written records have been kept.
Answer
No
- Asked by: Des McNulty, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 February 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 28 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the First Minister, his private office officials or any of his special advisers have had any contact by telephone or email with Mr Donald Macdonald or representatives of his company and, if so, what the dates of any such conversations or exchanges were, whether any matter referred to in the planning application in Aviemore in which Mr Macdonald or his company had an interest, or the adjudication of that application by the planning authority, or matters related to planning applications or roads in the Aviemore area, were referred to and what written records have been kept.
Answer
The only contacts are as follows:
A letter addressed to the First Minister from Mr Macdonald, dated 23 October 2007, was received by his constituency office in Inverurie on 24 October 2007 and passed to his Private Office by e-mail on 29 October 2007. As it provided background information on a planning application and as no action was required as a result of it, it was not drawn to the First Minister's attention but was forwarded for a formal response by an official in the Planning Directorate, which was sent to Mr Macdonald on 20 November 2007.
As a follow up to this letter, the First Minister's Constituency Office in Inverurie received e-mails from Mr Donald Macdonald's office on 7 November 2007 and 13 November 2007 enclosing further correspondence Mr Macdonald's company had exchanged with stakeholders in the planning process including the Cairngorms National Park Authority and The Highland Council. These were forwarded to his Private Office on 9 and 13 November respectively. As these were also for information and as they once again required no action, they were not drawn to the First Minister's attention. The e-mail of 7 November was issued with a standard acknowledgement by Private Office staff; the e-mail of 13 November was not acknowledged .
On 7 December 2007 the First Minister, amongst others, received a briefing note on the Aviemore development applications which had been commissioned by Fergus Ewing MSP as the constituency member and was drawn up by Mr Macdonald's agents. This was provided in the light of the representations made to the First Minister and other Ministers by Parliamentarians from four different parties the day before and elaborated on the information presented by the MSP's.
Special advisers telephoned the communications officer for Mr Macdonald's company on 27 January as a courtesy to make him aware of the statement made in response to newspaper articles, and on 9 January, 23 January and 7 February in connection with an invitation the First Minister had received to speak at a charity event, during which no matters pertaining to the Aviemore development were mentioned.
- Asked by: Des McNulty, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 January 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 7 February 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what policy steps it will take to reduce Scotland¿s carbon emissions between now and 2011; how its performance will be measured, and whether it expects to achieve any reduction within that timescale.
Answer
We are committed to taking earlyaction on climate change.
We have allocated significantadditional funds for measures which will reduce Scotland’s carbon emissions. Theseinclude £34.8 million to support a range of sustainable development and climatechange initiatives, including a new Climate Challenge Fund.
We are committed to introducinga system of cross-compliance to ensure that spending decisions assess the carbonimpact of policy options - across all government portfolios - and will take stepsto ensure effective implementation.
We have set ourselves a targetto reduce emissions by 2011 in line with the pathway towards reducing emissionsby 80 per cent by 2050.
- Asked by: Des McNulty, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 January 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 29 January 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive how and where survivors of historic in-care and institutional abuse can access the appropriate services that they require to help them to recover from the effects of the physical and psychological damage caused by such abuse; when specific proposals for survivors of historic in-care and institutional abuse will be brought forward as part of the Scottish Government’s wider Survivor Scotland strategy for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and who the providers of the services will be.
Answer
A range of national andlocal services are available to provide support to survivors of in-care andinstitutional abuse. I will announce proposals for improving the supportavailable to survivors in due course. I refer the member to the answer to questionS3W-7290 on 13 December 2007. All answersto written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website,the search facility for which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Des McNulty, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 January 2008
-
Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 24 January 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what the estimated cost is of the inquiry being led by Mr Eddie Frizzell into what went wrong at Kerelaw school.
Answer
Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government will share equally the costs of the Kerelaw IndependentInquiry. The detailed cost calculations are not yet completed.
- Asked by: Des McNulty, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Monday, 17 December 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 23 January 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing’s ministerial statement on health strategy on 12 December 2007, whether it will include Clydebank in the pilot scheme for a nurse-led minor injuries clinic.
Answer
The Better Health, Better Care Action Plan which I announced on 12 December 2007 sets out our commitmentto improve access to health care services. This includes a pilot to provide walk-inaccess to a range of primary care services, such as nurse-led minor injury clinicsand simple diagnostic tests, through community pharmacies. These will be availableduring normal pharmacy hours and, in some cases, extended to include out-of-hoursperiods such as evenings, Saturdays and Sundays.
The pilot will take place infive NHS board areas: NHS Grampian, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Lanarkshire,NHS Lothian and NHS Tayside. We will agree the locations of pilot sites with eachboard but the focus in the first instance will be major commuter points and shoppingareas. We expect all pilot sites will be up and running by the end of March 2008.
The pilot sites will be subjectto on-going evaluation to determine how best community pharmacy walk-in servicemodels could be applied in other areas; the sustainability of community pharmacywalk-in services and any future development of walk-in services.
- Asked by: Des McNulty, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Monday, 26 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 17 January 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage reduction in emissions by 2011 would be in line with the target of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-6397 on 17 January 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’swebsite, the search facility for which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Des McNulty, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Monday, 26 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 17 January 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will set a target for the lifetime of this administration for reducing carbon emissions and, if so, what that target will be.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-6397 on 17 January 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’swebsite, the search facility for which can be found at
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Des McNulty, MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, Scottish Labour
-
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 November 2007
-
Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 17 January 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what level of reduction of carbon emissions in each year to 2010-11 would be consistent with achieving the climate change target of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050.
Answer
The Scottish Government’s consultationon the proposed Climate Change Bill will include a target of reducing emissionsby 80% by 2050. The levels of reduction required in each year to 2011 have not yetbeen determined. We believe that independent, expert advice is needed on what thetrajectory of emission reductions should be, as it is important that the processthrough which the trajectory is set is transparent and robust. Once such adviceis available, we propose to set multi-year carbon budgets which would define thetrajectory of emissions reductions, including the path of reduction to 2011.
To this end, the UK Climate ChangeBill makes provision for the devolved administrations to seek advice on targetsthey may set from the UK Committee on Climate Change. We plan to use this facilityin the short term but the consultation will seek views on the significant issueof how we receive such advice in the longer term, once the proposed Scottish ClimateChange Bill is commenced.
We know that continuous progresson reducing emissions is essential. The Scottish Government believes that reportingan annual measure of progress within a multi-year budget process would be the bestmeans of achieving this.
