Chamber and committees

The only difference in the EU technical conservation measures applying to these boats is the requirement for a smaller square mesh panel in trawls and seines used by boats under 150hp.

Licences may be granted under the terms of section 16.-(1)(k) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

The Scottish Executive's policy is outlined in A Forward Strategy for Scottish Agriculture; the aim is to introduce Land Management Contracts in two to three years' time. As part of that policy, a steering group to assist in the development of Land Management Contracts will be announced in due course.Officials have also been in contact with the European Commission and with the French Ministry of Agriculture. A further fact-finding visit to France will take place over the next few months.

The following table lists information on gross expenditure for general dental services by health board area for 1999-2000 and 2000-01. In addition, it lists the general dental services indicative allocation figures for 2001-02 and 2002-03 for each health board area since gross expenditure figures for 2001-02 are not yet available.General Dental Services (£ million):

Health Board	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03
Argyll & Clyde	14.205	14.088	15.835	16.704
Ayrshire & Arran	11.955	12.352	13.736	14.489
Borders	3.394	3.408	3.691	3.893
Dumfries & Galloway	3.903	3.653	4.253	4.486
Fife	10.368	10.860	11.637	12.275
Forth Valley	8.819	9.475	9.932	10.477
Grampian	15.402	16.801	17.840	18.819
Greater Glasgow	35.737	34.721	38.098	40.188
Highland	5.759	6.174	6.408	6.759
Lanarkshire	17.909	18.462	18.833	19.866
Lothian	26.607	27.803	29.740	31.372
Orkney	0.457	0.497	0.562	0.596
Shetland	0.555	0.536	0.468	0.497
Tayside	13.667	14.283	15.572	16.426
Western Isles	0.821	0.872	0.786	0.829
Scotland	169.558	173.985	187.391	197.676

A site visit was carried out on 2 November 2001 and was attended by representatives of Fisheries Research Services Marine Laboratory and Scottish Natural Heritage, both of whom provided advice.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-21848, which explained that we see no need to amend the Occupier's Liability (Scotland) Act 1960, given the terms of section 5(2) of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. Section 2(3) of the 1960 Act also provides that nothing in that act imposes on occupiers any obligations to persons entering their land in respect of risks which such persons have willingly accepted, as determined by reference to the same principles as in other cases in which one person owes to another a duty of care. This ensures the application of the relevant common law rules concerning assumption of risk. However, since the issue of assumption of risk is so tied up with the question of the extent of the occupier's duty of care and since section 5(2) makes it clear that nothing in Part 1 of the bill will affect that duty, we do not consider that any further provision is necessary concerning this issue in the bill.

On 15 January the Executive announced an exemption scheme for certain water and sewerage charge payers. Those eligible for the exemption are organisations that have an annual income of less than £10,000 and that occupy premises that receive charitable relief at present. In the first instance, the exemption will last for four years from 1 April 2002 to 31 March 2006.

A risk analysis which assessed the reduction in risk of new outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease by the imposition of a 20-day standstill for cattle, sheep and goats was prepared by the Department of Risk Assessment at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency. This risk analysis was issued on 28 November 2001 and copies have been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 18976).The assessment concluded that a 20-day standstill effectively applied has the potential to reduce, probably by somewhere close to 100%, the probability of spread of infection by movement of livestock from any premises where infection is present in the livestock. However, the presence of non-blood tested sheep is likely to reduce the probable effectiveness of a 20-day standstill by a considerable amount.Following discussions with our main stakeholders, my officials are now consulting wider interests on proposals which will:retain the principle of the 20-day standstill during 2002, subject to review;allow, from mid-February, a number of limited exemptions from the standstill (for breeding bulls and rams, foster calves and lambs etc);permit from 18 March for cattle and 18 May for sheep an option to apply the 20-day standstill only to animals brought onto the farm (or to animals to be moved off) and not the rest of the animals on the holding on condition that they are kept separate and that biosecurity measures are observed.

The Agricultural Business Development Scheme (ABDS) statutory instrument did not come into force until February 2001 therefore it was not possible to issue grant awards before that date. Four Project Assessment Committee meetings were held in 2001 to assess 479 applications, of which 338 of those were approved. The total amount of grant allocated to ABDS applicants in 2001 was £4,057,437 and to date £502,402 has been claimed and issued.The ABDS is funded jointly by the Scottish Executive and by the EU as part of the Highlands and Islands Special Transitional Programme. £3.99 million is available for allocation to ABDS applicants in year 2002. The breakdown of applications by Area Office and category of application is as follows:(a) Applications by Area Office

Area Office	No. of applications	No. approved	Grant allocated (£)
Ayr	51	43	479,816
Elgin	70	53	559,789
Inverness	84	63	714,650
Kirkwall	47	39	702,065
Lairg	13	6	59,237
Lerwick	8	5	57,635
Oban	127	79	859,416
Portree	15	10	134,864
Thurso	56	36	448,963
Stornoway	8	4	41,002
Total	479	338	4,057,437

(b) Applications by Category

	No. of applications	No. approved	Grant allocated (£)
Investment in Holdings	352	271	2,845,271
Agricultural Diversification	2	1	9,436
Non-Agricultural Diversification	125	66	1,202,730
Total	479	338	4,057,437

So far this year, no ABDS awards have been made. The next ABDS Project Assessment Committee is scheduled to meet in Inverness in early March 2002 and applicants will be notified soon afterwards if they have been successful.

No such monitoring is currently undertaken. However, one of the principal objectives of our policy to promote renewable energy is to help Scottish companies to benefit from the increasing opportunities arising from the exploitation of Scotland's huge potential in this field. We will continue to work closely with both Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise on this, with the aim of increasing the many hundreds of jobs in Scotland already dependent on the design, installation and maintenance of renewable energy schemes.