Chamber and committees

The Executive has no plansto designate the entire area of Loch Ness as a bathing water under the ECBathing Water Directive. Anyone wishing to have a site consideredfor designation should apply to the Bathing Water Review Panel which mypredecessor asked Clean Coast Scotland to establish in 2005.

The Scottish Executive is awareof the National Defibrillator Programme which has operated in England since February2000, and I am asking the National Advisory Group for CHD toundertake a further review of the emergent evidence. Meanwhile, there is nothingto prevent cardiac services, Managed Clinical Networks or other organisations fromconsidering the merits of deploying defibrillators in public places in their localarea.

Given the evidence that survivalrates depend on the chain of response to an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, it isworth noting the high level of participation by schools in Scotland in theBritish Heart Foundation’s “Heartstart” programme, which teaches emergency lifesupport skills, including cardiopulmonary rehabilitation techniques.

There is no such standard orregulation. The Fire and Rescue services will use any available water supply whenfighting a fire, including sea water if necessary.

This is an operational matterfor SEPA. I have asked the Chief Executiveto reply to you directly

The commission’s powers of enforcementare contained in various sections of the Crofters (Scotland) Act1993.

There has been extensive useof the absentee powers and this information is reported in detail in the CroftersCommission’s annual reports. The forcing of re-letting has been used extensively,often in conjunction with absentee action.

The following table shows thenumber of:

(1) crofts declared vacant bythe commission – mostly through unresolved successions.

(2) where the commission hasinstigated reletting action of the croft at its own hand following issue of a section23 notice (action taken against owner-occupier absentees) seeking suitable relettingproposals. Since the absentee initiative started in 1997 the commission has issued a total of 44 such notices -41 of which resulted in suitable relettingproposals and the three in the table where theCommission took the initiative to relet the crofts.

(3) the absentee section 22 cases(action taken against absentee tenants) where the Commission terminated someone’stenancy.

	1. Commission Declare Croft Vacant	2. Commission Instigated Relet Action	3. Section 22
1996-97	3	1	2
1997-98	1		6
1998-99	1		16
1999-2000			13
2000-01	4	1	18
2001-02	1		15
2002-03	3		6
2003-04	3		3
2004-05		1	2
2005-06	2		10
	18	3	91

 

In addition, when the CroftersCommission carried out a Register Review exercise in the mid 90s it reminded landlordsof their obligations in terms of section 40 (obligation of landlords to provideinformation) of the act. Last year the commission issued a formal notice on thisbasis to a landlord in Shetland.

It is important to point outthat contrary to popular misconception the Crofters Commission has no powers totackle neglect or abuse of croft land. These powers rest with landlords.

Our policy is to publishinformation about recipients and amounts of subsidy under the single farm paymentand other new support regimes without exception. The details available on ourwebsite show the subsidy payments paid to date www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Agriculture/grants/LatestPayments.

The details were first publishedon 3 February 2006 and are updated on a weekly basis. Initially these detailsexcluded non-standard payments, such as those made in Euros for technicalreasons, but these have now been included. They are not identified separatelyas the amounts paid have been converted to sterling in order to provide aconsistent report.

Ferries were exempted on thebasis that they are offering a lifeline service to which alcohol is ancillary.However, in recognition that a greater degree of control had to be exercised, ministersalso took powers which will enable the sheriff to make an order prohibiting thesale of alcohol completely on any specified route.

The Licensing (Scotland)Act 2005 responds to the changing social climate in relation to alcohol inparticular the detrimental effect on individuals and their community. TheLicensing (Scotland) Act 2005 ensures those who sell alcohol as part ofa commercial entertainment service are aware of their responsibilities throughtraining and are held to account through the Licensing Board. This Parliamentconsidered this to be a necessary measure which goes beyond the requirements of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency for operators to have an alcohol policy inplace.

This precise information isnot available. Following analysis of the available data over the last 10 yearsit is estimated that an average of 210 directions are issued to decroft 55hectares of croft land for housing development each year.

Given that approximately750,000 hectares are under crofting tenure, 55 hectares represents about 0.007%of croft land per annum.

The Executive has regular discussionswith Scottish Water about various aspects of the business, including Scottish Water’sactivities in rural areas generally.