Chamber and committees

Decisions on attendance at these future meetings will be taken on a case by case basis, depending on the agendas for the meetings and their relevance to the Scottish Executive.

Quotas are allocated to UK Fish Producer Organisations and uptake of these quotas by these organisations is monitored centrally. It is the responsibility of the Producer Organisations to allocate quota to individual vessels within their membership. Consequently, fisheries departments do not hold records of the quota allocated to individual vessels.There are seven Fish Producer Organisations that are administered in Scotland. For the calendar year 2001 their share of the EC White fish quota by species was as follows:Table 1: Percentage of 2001 EC White fish Quota Allocated to Scottish Producer Organisations by Species

Species	Percentage of 2001 EC Quota
Cod	10%
Haddock	56%
Whiting	25%
Saithe	11%
Plaice	6%
Sole	1%
Hake	2%
Anglerfish	19%
Megrim	12%
Lemon sole and witch flounder	37%
Skates and rays	35%
Dabs and flounder	2%
Turbot and Brill	4%
Spurdog	62%
Pollack	2%

Notes:2001 EC quota as at 15/12/2000.Excludes quota for Faroese waters.Includes EC quota stocks with no UK interest.

We have assessed the possible socio-economic impacts of various outcomes from the December Fisheries Council. I am not prepared to disclose that advice.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-30553 today. 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.

I meet Mrs Beckett frequently, both at Council of Ministers' meetings and at the regular monthly meeting which involve ministerial counterparts from the other Devolved Administrations. The Executive does not keep detailed records of each individual meeting.

On the meetings that have taken place in each of the last three years, I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-30601 today. 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.Future meetings will be arranged as and when necessary.

The ICES advice is based on scientific observation of the stocks and associated fishing activity. In so far as recent technical conservation measures have benefited particular stocks, that will be reflected implicitly in the assessments. However, it will not be possible to quantify the impact of the most recent Scottish measures until next year. In the meantime, ICES has explicitly recognised the potential of these measures in the mixed fishery for cod, haddock and whiting.

The information requested is not held centrally.

As far as the statutory registers of births, marriages and deaths are concerned, two copies of each register are created, one of which is held by the local registration service which created it, and one which is sent to the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) in New Register House in Edinburgh. The registers held in New Register House will be preserved indefinitely. No decision has yet been taken on what will be done with the duplicate statutory registers held by local registration services when the digitisation of statutory registers has been completed. The registers themselves are the property of the Registrar General, while provision of storage and record accommodation is a matter for local registration services. Provision for the duplicate registers from a particular area will therefore be a matter for discussion between the Registrar General and the local registration service. GROS will be happy to be flexible in their approach to this, as they have been on previous occasions when registers have been replaced by microfiche.The other main sets of records that are being digitised by GROS are the open census records and the Old Parish Registers of the Church of Scotland, both of which are held at New Register House. These, again, will be preserved indefinitely.The Digitally Imaging the Genealogical Records of the Scottish people (DIGROS) project, under which the GROS is creating digital images of all its records, is expected to be completed by late 2003.

I refer the member to the answer given to his question on 28 October 2002. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.