Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S2W-19100

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 September 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 20 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-7664 by Mr Jack McConnell on 18 July 2000, what fuel costs it has incurred in each year since 1999, broken down into (a) electricity, (b) gas and (c) liquid fuel.

The fuel costs incurred by the Scottish Office from 1 April 1999 to 1 July 1999 and for the Scottish Executive from 1 July 1999 to 31 March 2005 are as follows:

Year	Electricity	Gas	Liquid Fuel	Total all Fuel
1999-2000	£552,961	£159,460	£65,240	£777,661
2000-2001	£566,760	£127,478	£77,249	£771,487
2001-2002	£502,573	£120,626	£98,953	£722,152
2002-2003	£592,545	£131,963	£18,618	£743,126
2003-2004	£562,946	£156,656	£25,346	£744,948
2004-2005	£529,336	£261,209	£54,652	£845,197

Question reference: S2W-19094

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 September 2005
Current Status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 20 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-3027 by Malcolm Chisholm on 27 October 2003, what the fuel costs were for ambulance services in each NHS board area in 2003-04 and 2004-05.

The Scottish Ambulance Service does not collect this information by health board area, but by operating division within its service. Health board area boundaries are not relevant to the ambulance service as they provide a national service.

Ambulances also can be moved from one division to another to ensure that they are utilised effectively and to even out the mileage over the fleet.

The figures by operating division are laid out in the following table:

Division	2003-04 (£000)	2004-05 (£000)
North East	407	426
North West	333	375
East Central	776	844
West Central	792	841
South East	585	651
South West	838	921
Other	194	205
Total	3,925	4,263

Source: Scottish Ambulance Service.

Question reference: S2W-18790

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 29 August 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 15 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many air weapons have been handed in to the police since the airgun hand-in scheme was introduced in March this year.

Question reference: S2W-19101

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 September 2005
Current Status: Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 15 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-7663 by Angus MacKay on 20 June 2000, what fuel costs have been incurred by the Scottish Prison Service in each year since 1999.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

The information is as follows:

Year	£ Million
2000-01	2.7
2001-02	3.2
2002-03	3.2
2003-04	3.3
2004-05	3.6

Note: the cost information above excludes fuel used in vehicles, which is not measurable separately from other vehicle costs.

Question reference: S2W-18573

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 August 2005
Current Status: Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 15 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of people aged (a) 18 and over and (b) under 18 regularly participated in sport or exercise in each year since 1994.

The information requested is set out in the following table using three year averages and was collected through a household omnibus survey undertaken by TNS every second month in Scotland. The total sample is normally 6,000 adults and 1,500 young people per annum but in 2003-04, as a result of additional funding from the Executive, the survey sample size was increased for this year only to 25,000 and 6,000 respectively. This allowed sportscotland to gather more detailed information on participation at a local authority area level. In completing the survey, respondents are asked about what they did in the last four weeks. Peak two months data is used to take account of sports where participation tends to be seasonal.

Years	18+	8-17
	%	%
1994-96	48	*
1995-97	48	*
1996-98	49	*
1997-99	51	*
1998-2000	51	88
1999-2001	51	86
2000-2002	50	85
2001-2003	49	82
2002-2004	48	85

Note: *Information for the under 18 age group is not available for these years.

Question reference: S2W-18885

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 September 2005
Current Status: Answered by Hugh Henry on 14 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been on a methadone programme in each year since 1997, broken down by (a) local authority and (b) NHS board area.

There is no national information that reports the number of people in Scotland who are receiving methadone hydrochloride mixture for opiate dependence. However, in July 2005, National Services Scotland published estimates of the number of people receiving methadone as part of their treatment for illicit drug misuse in June-July 2002, 2003 and 2004. This information is available, broken down by NHS board only, on:

http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/publications/local/isd_methadone.pdf.

Question reference: S2W-18884

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 September 2005
Current Status: Answered by George Lyon on 13 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many premises with off-sale liquor licences there have been in each year since 1997, broken down by local authority area.

The available information is given in the following table.

Premises with Off-Sales Liquor Licences in Force, by Local Authority Area, 1997-2004

Local Authority	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003¹	2004¹
Aberdeen City	312	282	248	286	245	263	269	263
Aberdeenshire	256	259	273	273	274	257	275	255
Angus	115	117	121	118	121	118	122	125
Argyll and Bute	206	202	238	175	207	201	201	176
Clackmannanshire	66	75	90	73	75	78	78	69
Dumfries and Galloway	258	266	263	275	242	244	242	239
Dundee City	154	153	164	164	155	156	163	161
East Ayrshire	156	148	148	142	145	138	141	141
East Dunbartonshire	78	77	77	84	86	81	82	76
East Lothian	120	120	117	104	123	123	121	113
East Renfrewshire	47	55	48	48	69	49	49	60
Edinburgh, City of	614	623	635	637	654	654	636	640
Eilean Siar	33	31	33	34	33	34	34	37
Falkirk	216	223	211	201	190	181	194	197
Fife	465	464	458	452	452	453	465	447
Glasgow City	590	546	574	568	582	524	611	634
Highland	414	419	423	438	414	439	423	434
Inverclyde	77	81	83	87	83	85	92	94
Midlothian	94	89	93	90	91	88	83	81
Moray	158	149	139	134	134	133	133	127
North Ayrshire	171	169	174	171	165	156	154	156
North Lanarkshire	322	327	327	331	328	325	319	317
Orkney Islands	46	45	47	47	46	49	52	54
Perth and Kinross	213	216	210	222	219	217	219	212
Renfrewshire	152	160	157	161	162	170	167	171
Scottish Borders	148	146	142	142	144	150	147	162
Shetland Islands	53	50	48	46	47	48	45	48
South Ayrshire	162	160	162	159	156	161	153	159
South Lanarkshire	235	233	236	242	230	219	231	222
Stirling	151	152	157	151	155	147	176	161
West Dunbartonshire	124	119	118	118	117	116	116	114
West Lothian	180	181	183	195	192	192	188	196
Total	6,386	6,337	6,397	6,368	6,336	6,249	6,381	6,341

Note: 1. Includes minor revisions to figures published previously for Highland and South Lanarkshire.

Question reference: S2W-18572

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 18 August 2005
Current Status: Answered by Patricia Ferguson on 8 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) sports halls, (b) grass football pitches, (c) artificial grass football pitches and (d) swimming pools there have been in (i) total and (ii) each local authority area in each year since 1994.

Question reference: S2W-18665

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 August 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 6 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive what input it has had, and will have, into the United Kingdom's governmental verification points and validation agents, as referred to in Article 13 of Regulation (EC) No 874/2004.

The Scottish Executive has appointed a government verification point to check Scottish public body applications for .eu domain names.

The Executive has been working closely with the UK Cabinet Office and the Department for Trade and Industry, who are the lead UK Department in this matter, and has been represented at two events in Brussels organised to raise awareness of the .eu domain, how it will operate and the role of the government verification point.

EURID, who were selected by the European Union to operate the .eu domain name have appointed PriceWaterhouseCoopers as the validating agent.

Question reference: S2W-18663

Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 August 2005
Current Status: Answered by Tom McCabe on 6 September 2005

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is considering registering appropriate .eu top-level domains for itself in phase 1 of EURid's sunrise period and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

Under the public policy rules for .eu top level domains, these have allowed member states to request domain names directly related to their country name. The UK Cabinet Office, in consultation, has reserved a number of geographic names including www.scotland.eu and the Executive expects to be able to use this.

In addition, the Executive intends to register a limited number of other appropriate .eu domain names during phase 1 of the sunrise period. The Executive will register these domain names primarily to protect and prevent abuse of the Scottish Executive.