Chamber and committees

Below is a breakdown by council of successful applications to Scottish Ministers for consent to dispose of property or land at less than full market value since 1 July 1999.

Name of Council	No. of requests	Land	Property
Aberdeen City	1		1
Aberdeenshire	3	3
Angus	0
Argyll & Bute	6	4	2
Clackmananshire	1	1 (property included)
Dumfries & Galloway	1		1
Dundee City	4	2	2
East Ayrshire	2	2
East Dunbartonshire	0
East Lothian	1		1
East Renfrewshire	0
Edinburgh City	4	3	1
Falkirk	0
Fife	0
Glasgow City	2	2
Highland	15	7	8
Inverclyde	0
Midlothian	0
Moray	4	3	1
North Ayrshire	0
North Lanarkshire	1		1
Orkney Islands	1	1 (property included)
Perth & Kinross	0
Renfrewshire	3	1
Scottish Borders	1	1
Shetland Islands	1	1
South Ayrshire	1	1
South Lanarkshire	0
Stirling	4	4
West Dunbartonshire	0
West Lothian	1	1
Western Isles	1		1
TOTAL	58	37 property	21 land

We aim to implement the new contaminated land regime in July, subject to the parliamentary process. The draft statutory guidance was laid before the Scottish Parliament on 25 May. Subject to parliamentary approval, we expect to promulgate the new regime by issuing a circular to local authorities and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency on 14 July, with the guidance and accompanying regulations coming into force immediately thereafter.

The Commission's proposals would require further substantial cuts in the UK fishing fleet, including notably the Scottish pelagic fleet, by end 2002.

We support the conservation aims of the Multi-Annual Guidance Programmes but we do not believe it is reasonable for changes in MAGPIV to be proposed, without consultation, at this stage in the programme. We do not believe that the suggestions of further capacity reductions are justified or even practical. We will make these points to the Commission in the strongest possible terms.

As indicated in my previous response, consultations to date have been informal. These have been continuing with a view to holding a seminar for all relevant parties.

Additional capital consents were issued to local authorities in the final quarter of financial year 1999-2000 as follows:

General Services Account
East Renfrewshire	£100,000
Renfrewshire	£500,000
West Dumbartonshire	£100,000

Housing Revenue Account
Eilean Siar	£100,000
Glasgow City	£600,000
Inverclyde	£300,000
North Ayrshire	£500,000
Scottish Borders	£160,000
West Dunbartonshire	£110,000

I refer Mr Tosh to the answer I gave to question S1W-3752.

The potential impact on Hawick as a location for inward investment is not being addressed by the A6091/A7 Galashiels to Hawick Route Action Plan study. The purpose of this study is to examine the potential for improvement of the road by a programme of local improvement schemes to reduce accidents while improving the environment of the route.

This issue would best be addressed in specific report exploring all the economical issues surrounding a Selkirk bypass. However, as the preliminary assessment of a Selkirk bypass option indicates that any benefits accrued are outweighed by the high construction costs, there are currently no plans to carry out a more detailed study of the bypass option.

Scottish local authorities administer housing benefit in Scotland on behalf of the Department of Social Security which has responsibility for policy on housing benefit including the prevention of fraud. The issues raised are therefore reserved to the UK Parliament.

The figures requested are detailed in the table below. This shows that, in both the East of Scotland Water Authority and West of Scotland Water Authority areas, average combined domestic bills for the year 2000-01 are lower than any in England and Wales. The North of Scotland Water Authority's average bill is lower than those of companies with similar geographical and demographic characteristics (i.e. largely rural areas with long coastlines, sparsely populated), such as South West and Dwr Cymru.

Water and sewerage service providersAverage combined domestic water and sewerage bills, 2000-01 (rounded to nearest £)

	£		£
Anglian	251	East of Scotland	184
Dwr Cymru	266	North of Scotland	237
North West	222	West of Scotland	169
Northumbrian	198
Severn Trent	198
South West	314
Southern	239
Thames	187
Wessex	231
Yorkshire	209
English & Welsh Industry Average*	219	Scottish Industry Average	189

Sources: English and Welsh data provided by Ofwat (reference - Ofwat press release, 2 March 2000).

Data for each company/authority derived from projected revenue divided by number of billed households.

* includes water bills by water only companies, ranging from £74 to £137. Water bills from the English and Welsh water and sewerage companies listed above range from £88 to £126).

The evaluation of a project after its completion is an important part of any project. However, it is a matter for local authorities to monitor the effects of the projects for which they are responsible. The guidance issued to local authorities inviting bids to the Public Transport Fund (PTF) sets out how the Scottish Executive expects local authorities to evaluate projects after completion. The Scottish Executive places considerable weight on evaluation of its own projects and expects local authorities to do the same. As part of their bids local authorities are expected to demonstrate that appropriate evaluation and monitoring procedures will be followed and explain how they intend to measure whether the objectives have been achieved. This is an important part of the Executive's appraisal of a bid and to be successful the Executive must be confident that these procedures are in place.