Chamber and committees

The Scottish Governmentwill decide on future funding for tackling deprivation as part of the spending reviewprocess.

Data on the incidenceof acute myocardial infarction at council level area are produced by InformationServices Division of NHS National Services Scotland and can be viewed at:http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/files/oct06_IC4.xls.

These data will beupdated in October 2007.

The West DunbartonshireCommunity Health Partnership is instituting a number of measures to address inequalitiesboth in the short and long-term to reduce the incidence of myocardial infarctionin its population, many of them linked to its status as a Wave 2 “Keep Well” area.

The total outstandingstudent loan debt from Scottish borrowers at the 31 March 2007 was £1,953,784,457. This figure is made up of £1,845,726,000of debt held by the Scottish Government and £108,058,457 of sold debt held by privatesector institutions.

The draft bill illustratesthe form that legislation could take to provide for a referendum for the questionposed. The government has not considered the detailed statutory instruments thatmight be made under the powers in the bill in the event of it passing into law.However, at a minimum a referendum would require provisions on the conduct of elections,form of ballot papers, and information to be returned to Scottish ministers similarto the provisions for the 1997 devolution referendum contained in Schedule 3 tothe Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Act 1997 (c. 61).

A number of officialswere involved in preparing Choosing Scotland’s Future as part of their normalduties. Information on the number of staff hours spent on preparing the documentis not available.

The government aimsto build support for a referendum in the lifetime of this Parliament. The governmentalso aims for widespread participation by the people of Scotland in the national conversation to discuss, and decide,the future of our country.

The government willreport to Parliament in due course.

I refer the memberto the answer to question S3W-3313 on 12 September 2007. Allanswers 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.

The white paper invitespeople to sign up for the national conversation, and indicate how they wish to contribute.The paper also invites people to suggest how the conversation would best be structuredto ensure the greatest possible involvement of the people of Scotland. The exact form of the national conversation will dependon the responses received, but the government is determined to support a conversationthat ensures that all sectors of Scottish society have the opportunity to contribute.

There was no additionalcost to the government in preparing the draft Referendum (Scotland) Bill. The billwas prepared by Scottish Government officials as part of their normal duties.