Chamber and committees

I refer Mr MacAskill to my answer to question S1W-9165.

This is a matter for the City of Edinburgh Council. The Scottish Executive is represented alongside the City of Edinburgh Council and Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothians on the Edinburgh Waterfront Monitoring Group. This group has identified traffic and transport issues as key aspects of the comprehensive area redevelopment proposals.

No. The implementation of the project is a matter for City of Edinburgh Council.

When the application for Transport Challenge Fund support was submitted to the Scottish Office in June 1996, the council envisaged that the private sector contribution would be £28.5 million. The precise amount of private sector investment in any contract agreed is a matter for City of Edinburgh Council.

Under the provisions made in the UK Transport Bill, introduced on 1 December 1999, the Scottish Ministers will be able to issue directions and guidance to the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) for passenger rail services that begin and end in Scotland (effectively the ScotRail franchise). Since the Bill has not completed its passage through Parliament at Westminster, the Scottish Ministers are not yet able to exercise these powers.

We will, however, shortly be consulting on strategic priorities for Scotland's railways as part of the process of developing these directions and guidance to the SRA. During this process we will give consideration to a wide range of issues, including proposals for improved rail access from Lanarkshire to Edinburgh.

I refer Mr MacAskill to my answer to question S1W-5369 on 13 April.

I refer Mr MacAskill to answer given to S1W-9019.

The results of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions sponsored Study - Inverness-London Air Service: Economic Impact Assessment has not yet been submitted to Ministers and publishing arrangements have not been finalised. Scottish Executive officials commented on the methodology and on a draft report. Under the terms of the Code of Practice on Access to Scottish Executive Information, it would not be appropriate for the Executive to disclose information which would harm the frankness and candour of internal discussion and advice, including between the Scottish Executive and the UK Government. However, the emerging issues from this study, and those from the Scottish Airports and Air Services Study and other Regional Studies in the rest of the UK, are being co-ordinated and audited for consistency as part of the Regional Air Services Co-ordination (RASCO) Study. Once RASCO has been completed the next step will be for a UK wide public consultation exercise.

The directions and guidance issued by the Scottish Executive to the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) for passenger rail services that start and end in Scotland will reflect the Executive's strategic priorities for the provision of passenger rail services throughout Scotland. We intend to issue a consultation paper shortly on those priorities. In drawing up the directions and guidance we will work closely with the SRA and in so doing ensure that it is fully appraised of the range of projects currently under consideration across the Scottish network.

This information is not collected. We do not propose to carry out such a study.