- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 October 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by David Steel on 7 November 2002
To ask the Presiding Officer whether the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) has received any correspondence from Prince Charles: if so, whether it will publish any such correspondence and any response made, and what the reasons are for its position on the matter.
Answer
No correspondence has been received from HRH The Prince of Wales by the SPCB.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 October 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by David Steel on 7 November 2002
To ask the Presiding Officer how much the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body has spent on entertainment and hospitality since July 1999, giving details of each event where such costs were incurred, including the purpose of the event, who attended and on what date the event took place.
Answer
The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body has incurred approximately £156,000 of expenditure on hospitality over a 39-month period, since July 1999. The cost of identifying each individual event and those present over the last three years would not be justified.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 October 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by David Steel on 7 November 2002
To ask the Presiding Officer whether there has been any expenditure unnecessarily incurred by the Office of the Presiding Officer; if so, whether the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body will provide details, and what the reasons are for the position on this matter.
Answer
No.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 October 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by David Steel on 7 November 2002
To ask the Presiding Officer whether the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body considers that there is scope for savings in the expenditure of the Office of the Presiding Officer and, if so, whether any such savings can be made in respect of the expenses relating to the (a) Presiding and Deputy Presiding Officers and (b) staff of the Office of the Presiding Officer.
Answer
No.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 October 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by David Steel on 7 November 2002
To ask the Presiding Officer what the reasons are for appointing an Opening Ceremonies Manager for the new Parliament building; when the decision was taken that such an appointment should be made; who has been appointed to the post and, if the appointee was already a member of the Parliament's staff, whether the postholder's substantive post will be filled; whether the post was advertised and, if so, where, and how much the recruitment exercise cost, including any savings associated with the postholder's substantive post.
Answer
A member of the Parliament's staff has been appointed, following an internal competition, to undertake the duties of Opening Ceremonies Manager on a temporary basis. The decision to make the appointment was taken by the Corporate Body on 25 June 2002. The reasons for the appointment are as follows: experience of the 1999 Opening Ceremony pointed towards the need for one or more dedicated members of staff; the work of the Opening Ceremonies Steering Group requires to be supported and the contributions from different sections of parliamentary staff require to be co-ordinated; communication with and monitoring of the work of an external events co-ordinator, once appointed, will best be managed through the post; calls on the budget provisionally allocated for the Opening Ceremonies will be monitored by the manager. His substantive post has been advertised internally, to be filled on a temporary basis. No recruitment costs, other than staff time, have been incurred. To date, no savings have accrued. I will write to the member directly with the other details requested.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 11 October 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 7 November 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-28916 by Ross Finnie on 25 September 2002, what its estimate is of the area of land that is under traditional secure tenancy arrangements; what the source and date is for such an estimate; how many farm units are held under such tenure, and what the average si'e of such units is.
Answer
Over 1.7 million Ha of agricultural land in Scotland are rented under full tenancy agreements (that is, tenancies under the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991 with traditional secure tenants or limited partnership tenants, including minor holdings) (source:
Scottish Agricultural Statistics, Scottish Executive, 2001). As I explained in the answer given to question S1W-28914 on 18 October 2002, there were estimated to be around 14,000 full tenancy agreements under the 1991 act active in Scotland in 2001. We do not hold information centrally which subdivides this figure further. On the basis of the above information, we estimate that the average size of a holding under a full tenancy agreement in Scotland is around 120 Ha.A Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) survey estimated that around 64% of such tenanted land is held under 1991 act tenancies with a traditional secure tenant (source:
Land Tenure Patterns in Scotland, RICS Scotland, 1995, Table 1). This would mean that around 1 million Ha of agricultural land in Scotland are held under traditional secure 1991 act tenancies.All answers to written parliamentary questions can be found on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 07 October 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 6 November 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will support the creation of a bypass on the A96 at Nairn and, if so, what steps it will take to achieve this.
Answer
The case for a bypass for Nairn has not been identified as a priority when considering potential projects for the motorway and trunk roads programme and there are no plans at present to take forward such a scheme. I have not received representations on this matter from either Highland or the Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership (HITRANS).
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 11 October 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Allan Wilson on 6 November 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has for a scheme to assist rural sub-post offices along the lines of the funding made available to support sub-post offices in urban areas.
Answer
Post offices and postal services are reserved to the UK Government. I understand that details of financial support for rural post offices will be announced shortly by the Department of Trade and Industry.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 11 October 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Mary Mulligan on 6 November 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive how much the Food Standards Agency Scotland (FSAS) spent on the issue of amnesic shellfish poisoning, including research and the taking of samples, and whether it will show these figures against the overall budget of the FSAS in each year since the agency was established.
Answer
FSAS have advised me that between the years 2000 and 2002 they have spent £238,000 on research into amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP). In the case of monitoring and the taking of samples, it is impossible to separate spend on ASP from other algal toxins. The following table details total FSAS spend on the shellfish algal toxin monitoring programme per year since the creation of the agency.Cost of Shellfish Algal Toxin Monitoring Programme Since Creation of FSAS
| Financial Year | Total Monitoring Costs(£000) | Total Sampling Cost(£000) | Total FSAS Budget(£ million) |
| 2000-01 | 207 | 140 | 5.1 |
| 2001-02 | 466 | 307 | 5.9 |
| 2002-present | 292 | 233 | 5.5 |
In addition, £100,000 per annum is spent on monitoring phytoplankton in Scottish waters.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 10 October 2002
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Current Status:
Answered by Lewis Macdonald on 6 November 2002
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish details of all communications, including e-mails, letters, telephone conversations and any other methods of communication, it has had with Her Majesty's Government and any of its agencies or non-departmental public bodies in regard to flights to Inverness and the north of Scotland.
Answer
No. Disclosure of information which would harm the frankness and candour of internal discussion is exempted from the commitment to provide information under the Code of Practice on Access to Scottish Executive Information.
