Chamber and committees

I plan to meet with the Ministry of Education in Beijing as well as education authorities in Shandong Province and Shanghai. I will also meet the British Ambassador while I am in Beijing. My itinerary includes visits to the partners of Scottish education institutions and organisations as well as meetings with life sciences business contacts.

I plan to visit Beijing, Shandong Province and Shanghai.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-10603 on 10 March 2008. 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/wa.search.

Information on the incidence of cancer, by tumour type, year and NHS board are available from the Scottish Cancer Registry at ISD Scotland, www.isdscotland.org. The most recent year for which published information is available is 2004.

The information requested is not available centrally. Survival data for Scotland as a whole are available, broken down by year and by tumour type, from ISD Scotland:

www.isdscotland.org.

There are no national screening programme arrangements for the detection of prostate cancer.

The Scottish Government is provided with expert, independent advice on screening programmes by the UK National Screening Committee (NSC).

The level of Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) in the blood is one of a range of investigations which may be undertaken to help confirm a diagnosis of prostate cancer. Currently available tests cannot differentiate between those men whose prostate cancer will grow rapidly and aggressively and those in whom it will remain localised to the prostate for the rest of their lives. Thus, some men could be offered treatment that they do not require and current treatments for prostate cancer can also have serious side-effects, including impotence and incontinence. PSA levels may also be raised in a number of conditions unrelated to cancer.

For these reasons the current PSA test and treatment for prostate cancer do not meet the requirements for an effective population based screening programme and is not currently recommended by the NSC. The NSC continue to actively review the research findings as they become available on screening for prostate cancer and Scottish Government will continue to monitor their advice and recommendations closely.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning will be leading a delegation to China from 5 to 12 April 2008. The purpose of the visit is to strengthen our engagement with China, with a particular focus on developing greater educational and research links.

The First Minister is due to visit China in September and will attend the Paralympics Games and support Scottish business interests.

The Deputy Director for International Division undertook a visit to China in February 2008.

The Scottish Government received a delegation from the Department of Arts, Ministry of Culture, Chinese Government on 5 March 2008.

The following table shows the numbers of applications for sanction to instruct senior and/or junior counsel for trial or proof by the month in which they were received by the Scottish Legal Aid Board. The table shows the final decision on those applications taking into account any reconsiderations (further reconsiderations of refusals may yet be received) and the number granted or part-granted as a proportion of the number of applications in that month.

Applications which were granted in part are those where sanction was not deemed to be appropriate for the full extent of the work for which it was sought. Applications which were not considered are primarily those where the applicant indicated, before a final decision was made, that sanction is no longer required.

Month of Receipt	Total Receipts	Granted	Not Considered	Part Granted	Refused	Grant Rate
April 2006	59	35	0	1	23	61.0%
May 2006	88	53	2	1	32	61.4%
June 2006	80	48	3	0	29	60.0%
July 2006	76	46	2	2	26	63.2%
August 2006	97	70	3	1	23	73.2%
September 2006	86	51	3	2	30	61.6%
October 2006	122	80	4	2	36	67.2%
November 2006	105	31	1	1	72	30.5%
December 2006	79	20	2	1	56	26.6%
January 2007	84	35	1	3	45	45.2%
February 2007	86	11	2	1	72	14.0%
March 2007	109	24	0	0	85	22.0%
April 2007	74	13	3	2	56	20.3%
May 2007	82	17	3	1	61	22.0%
June 2007	80	29	2	2	47	38.8%
July 2007	90	34	4	1	51	38.9%
August 2007	84	33	10	0	41	39.3%
September 2007	65	25	0	1	39	40.0%
October 2007	84	20	6	1	57	25.0%
November 2007	76	22	2	2	50	31.6%
December 2007	66*	15	2	2	45	25.8%
Total	1772	712	55	27	976	41.7%

Note: *Two applications received in December 2007 are as yet undecided.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-10177 on 3 March 2008. 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/wa.search.