- Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 August 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 6 September 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it would support the creation of a geographic second level domain for Scotland as part of the .eu top-level domain that is administered by EURid.
Answer
The Scottish Executive has registered the domain name
www.scotland.eu under the EC public policy rules for .eu. There are no plans to create a geographic second level domain.
- Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 August 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 6 September 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will encourage other public bodies to register their appropriate .eu top-level domains.
Answer
The Scottish Executive wrote to Scottish public bodies on 18 June 2004 to raise their awareness about the .eu top level domain name. However, it is for each individual public body to determine whether or not to register an .eu domain
- Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 28 July 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 2 September 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-17650 by Cathy Jamieson on 26 July 2005 which asked for the Executive’s view on whether Scottish courts ought to be able to make applications to the European Court of Justice for preliminary rulings on the validity and interpretation of framework decisions and decisions of the Council of Ministers of the European Union relating to the European area of freedom, justice and security, why no substantive answer was given to the question and whether it will give an answer now.
Answer
The making of a declaration under Article 35(2) is a matter for the UK government. The Scottish Executive would be fully consulted on any proposal by the UK government to make a declaration and that would be the appropriate context for it to make its views known.
- Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 29 July 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Tavish Scott on 24 August 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what annual charter and leasing costs are incurred by NorthLink Ferries in respect of the ships acquired from their joint venture with the Royal Bank of Scotland and, if the costs are not available, what the reasons are for such unavailability.
Answer
NorthLink currently leases three roll-on roll-off ferry vessels from Royal Bank Leasing Ltd under arrangements made between those parties and the Scottish Ministers in preparation for NorthLink’s provision of the Northern Isles ferry service. Under those arrangements, NorthLink makes annual leasing payments totalling £8.08 million. This amount, which was established on commercial terms, forms part of the annual leasing payments shown in NorthLink’s annual accounts.
- Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 June 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 19 August 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to review the level of payment for home loss set under the Home Loss Payment (Specification of Amount) (Scotland) Regulations (SI 1989/47) in respect of when an increase is anticipated and the level of such increase and what the reasons are for its positionon this matter.
Answer
The Executive is currently considering the appropriate level of home loss payments for Scotland. Should a change in levels be required, then we will consider bringing forward proposals in due course.
- Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 04 July 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 17 August 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S2W-16495 and S2W-17355 by Cathy Jamieson on 27 June and 23 May 2005 and given that there are matters in the draft Framework Decision on retention of data processed and stored in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or data on public communications networks for the purpose of prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of crime and criminal offences, including terrorism, that may fall within the Parliaments legislative responsibility, whether it will express a fuller view on the draft Framework Decisions impact on (a) Scots law on criminal investigations and procedure, (b) Scots law on judicial co-operation with other countries and (c) civil liberties in Scotland.
Answer
I refer the member to the answers to questions S2W-16495, S2W-16497 and S2W-16498 on 23 May 2005 and S2W-17355 and S2W-17356 on 27 June 2005. All answers 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/search_wa.
An assessment of the decision’s impact on matters that fall within the Parliament’s responsibilities will be made in due course, if necessary. The matters covered by the latest draft of the Framework Decision (dated 29 June 2005) are wholly reserved.
- Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 28 July 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 17 August 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-17650 by Cathy Jamieson on 26 July 2005, if the UK Government were to make a declaration under article 35(2) of the Treaty of the European Union accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in justice and home affairs matters, what obligation the Scottish Parliament would be under to assent to legislation ratifying the decision and whether the Executive would support the passage of such legislation.
Answer
No implementing legislation would be required to give effect to a declaration under 35(2) of the Treaty of European Union.
- Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 August 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Andy Kerr on 15 August 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-17655 by Mr Andy Kerr on 2 August 2005, what the reasons are for the discrepancy in the number of recorded injuries between the “STATS 19” returns and the recorded injury number in the answer to the question for the same period.
Answer
The response to S2W-17655, answeredon 2 August 2005, related to admissions to hospital resulting from roadtraffic accidents. The STATS 19 report publishes data that cover all injury roadaccidents (i.e. accidents in which one or more people are injured) which becomeknown to the police in Scotland. Thus the two reports are not directly comparable. Police forces submit the STATS 19 returns, which give detailsof road accidents, in which one or more people were injured, which occurred on publicroads and which were reported to them. Many of the casualties in such accidentsare not injured sufficiently badly to be admitted to hospital - so would not becounted in the hospital admissions figures There will also be accidents which resultin someone being admitted to hospital but which are not reported to the police.For example, a child who was badly injured when falling off a bike in the street,with no other vehicle being involved, might well be admitted to hospital (and recordedthere as a road accident casualty) without the police being informed - so wouldnot be counted in the Stats 19 figures.
Road accident statisticsare available in Key 2004 Road Accident Statistics, (Bib. number 36730) andRoad Accidents Scotland 2003, (Bib. number 34523).
- Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 29 July 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by George Reid on 15 August 2005
To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, in light of the security level in the parliament building being raised to amber, whether it will consider making provision for constituents and other interested parties to hand deliver correspondence and packages to the building and what the reasons are for its position on the matter.
Answer
In normal circumstances,i.e. when there is not an enhanced state of security alert, hand deliveredcorrespondence and packages from unexpected sources are normally accepted atthe security gatehouse where they are screened in an area which provides bombblast protection. The deliverer is asked to remain until items are screened anddeemed safe for internal delivery. Certain additional security measures apply duringan enhanced state of alert. One of these is that we accept only fullydocumented deliveries. This removes the increased probability of identifyingsuspect packages from unknown sources. It also means that the safety of securitystaff is not unnecessarily compromised during higher risk periods.
Security staff on duty willadvise anyone wishing to deliver undocumented items of the reason for non acceptanceand will provide full Parliament addressee details to enable the deliverer touse the external mail system if they wish. All external mail for the Parliamentis screened at an off-site location prior to delivery.
- Asked by: Kenny MacAskill, MSP for Lothians, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 14 July 2005
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Current Status:
Answered by Cathy Jamieson on 12 August 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answers to questions S2W-17356 and S2W-16495 by Cathy Jamieson on 27 June and 23 May 2005, whether the implementation of framework decisions in general is reserved to the UK Government and, if so, what provision within the Scotland Act 1998 reserves such responsibility.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-17908 answered on 5 August 2005.All answers 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/search_wa.
