Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S3W-31332

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 01 February 2010
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 23 February 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-22150 by Kenny MacAskill on 25 March 2009, how many drug-free wings there are in each prison and whether it plans to increase this figure.

I have asked Willie Pretswell, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

There is one drug free area in HM Prison, Kilmarnock. SPS is in the process of evaluating the introduction of Addiction Support Areas in HM Prison, Edinburgh. It is run as a pilot project, housing prisoners who have a history of drug problems, who wish to distance themselves from this lifestyle and where treatment and care services can be concentrated to meet prisoner''s needs. Any increase in the number of Addiction Support Areas will depend on lessons learned from early work.

Question reference: S3W-31335

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 01 February 2010
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 23 February 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment it has made of the finding of the 2008-09 Scottish Crime and Justice Survey: Drug Use that 87.6% of adults who had used drugs in the month prior to interview reported that it was easy to get hold of the drug they used most often in that period, including 48.6% who claimed it was very easy, and what action it plans to take.

The Scottish Government works with the police to reduce the supply of drugs as set out in chapter 4 of Scotland''s national drugs strategy Road to Recovery published in 2008. In 2008-09 the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency seized 1011kg of class A drugs with a street value of over £43 million. In June 2009 the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce published Letting Our Communities Flourish - a national strategy to combat serious organised crime. This has been backed up by a £4 million investment in the SCDEA over the next two years to help fund a Scottish Intelligence and Co-Ordination unit and employ over 80 extra staff. As well as disrupting the supply we are ensuring that those who are instrumental in drugs trafficking do not profit from their allegal activities. That is why we are strengthening the powers available for the seizure of assets in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Question reference: S3W-31333

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 01 February 2010
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 23 February 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-22150 by Kenny MacAskill on 25 March 2009, what evidence it has of the effectiveness of drug-free wings.

Question reference: S3W-31328

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 01 February 2010
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 23 February 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many drug finds there have been in each prison in each month since January 2007, broken down by type of drug.

I have asked Willie Pretswell, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

The following tables illustrates the number of suspected drug finds from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2009.

2009 Establishment	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec
Aberdeen	13	12	15	5	10	9	8	11	11	8	21	11
Addiewell	0	15	46	10	13	16	21	20	22	23	14	28
Barlinnie	20	24	33	22	25	24	24	23	22	21	15	14
Cornton Vale	10	5	11	8	13	11	8	11	7	8	12	9
Dumfries	3	1	0	1	0	2	1	0	1	3	1	1
Edinburgh	19	26	25	15	17	18	28	16	24	17	21	29
Glenochil	13	14	9	9	14	22	17	5	7	6	9	6
Greenock	7	8	4	2	5	7	5	4	4	9	2	5
Inverness	1	1	1	5	0	2	1	2	5	1	0	0
Kilmarnock	13	20	19	19	27	13	13	13	10	12	12	19
SPS Open Estate	13	2	7	2	3	4	2	2	2	9	2	5
Perth	11	12	11	4	14	9	11	14	8	14	18	9
Peterhead	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
Polmont	17	8	8	10	10	7	17	13	5	12	5	10
Shotts	5	7	9	15	10	11	10	7	11	8	8	4

2008 Establishment	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec
Aberdeen	8	0	2	4	4	1	11	12	11	15	11	8
Addiewell (opened 09/12/08)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Barlinnie	32	26	31	31	22	17	22	25	28	19	24	22
Cornton Vale	11	10	13	9	8	9	6	2	9	11	14	13
Dumfries	0	2	0	5	5	5	5	4	1	4	1	2
Edinburgh	30	27	34	28	28	31	29	18	20	28	25	18
Glenochil	8	17	15	10	9	11	15	18	4	7	11	8
Greenock	7	7	10	1	6	10	9	5	4	9	10	3
Inverness	1	1	1	3	0	1	1	1	0	1	2	2
Kilmarnock	17	18	22	23	16	14	24	12	11	12	8	18
SPS Open Estate	4	4	10	2	6	2	4	7	5	5	3	11
Perth	12	7	9	16	11	17	14	13	12	9	8	13
Peterhead	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
Polmont	10	20	6	11	6	8	15	6	11	13	13	16
Shotts	7	17	3	15	11	6	10	5	13	7	10	6

2007 Establishment	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec
Aberdeen	2	6	1	1	3	4	7	10	1	5	6	4
Barlinnie	33	34	40	32	36	27	18	31	38	16	39	34
Cornton Vale	8	9	7	6	4	6	6	11	5	13	12	19
Dumfries	1	0	1	1	2	3	4	3	6	1	6	1
Edinburgh	9	15	8	12	16	23	16	15	18	21	25	26
Glenochil	10	5	10	6	10	8	8	20	17	15	19	16
Greenock	8	11	7	5	7	3	7	4	9	6	8	0
Inverness	0	3	0	1	0	1	0	0	1	0	3	2
Kilmarnock	17	16	20	7	33	11	19	16	13	12	18	22
Lowmoss (closed 31/03/07)	7	7	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
SPS Open Estate	6	10	5	2	4	3	3	4	13	3	4	6
Perth	11	17	21	13	8	13	11	13	7	11	5	9
Peterhead	2	1	0	0	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	0
Polmont	9	5	17	10	7	13	4	8	12	7	6	11
Shotts	6	7	6	7	9	10	4	6	8	8	8	11

Question reference: S3W-31330

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 01 February 2010
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 23 February 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of random drug tests carried out on prisoners in each of the last 12 months has been found to be positive, broken down by prison.

Question reference: S3W-31340

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 01 February 2010
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 22 February 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive how many orders for lifelong restriction have been issued in each year since their introduction, broken down by local authority area.

The Order for Lifelong Restriction (OLR), which is a life sentence, has been available to the High Court of the Justiciary since June 2006. The following table sets out the number of Order for Lifelong Restriction sentences imposed by the court:

Year	No. of OLRs
2006	1
2007	4
2008	12
2009	26
2010	3
Total	46

Question reference: S3W-31339

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 01 February 2010
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 16 February 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress it considers that the national drugs strategy is making in tackling problem drug use.

Significant progress is being made in the delivery of the Drugs Strategy. Since the launch of the Road to Recovery, the Scottish Government, COSLA and its partners have taken forward a wide range of action to give effect to its aspirations including:

a new HEAT (Health improvement, Efficiency, Access, Treatment) target for access to drugs services, backed by significant additional funding;

a new delivery framework for local action on alcohol and drugs, with new Alcohol and Drug Partnerships established across Scotland;

the recruitment of a new group of National Support Co-ordinators working with those local partnerships;

and a new Recovery Consortium established to develop and promote understanding of how best services can genuinely support recovery from problem drug use.

This work has been supported by an investment of £76.4 million for front line drugs services from 2007-08 to 2009-10. In 2010-11 we intend to allocate a further £28.6 million, with the approval of Parliament, representing an increase of over 20% since 2006-07. To measure the impact of this activity we have invested in the enhancement of the Scottish Drugs Misuse Database that will in time enable us to monitor drug treatment outcomes.

To ensure that the progress of the strategy is appropriately and effectively scrutinised and challenged, the Scottish Government committed to establishing a Drugs Strategy Delivery Commission. The commission which is independently chaired and includes sectoral expertise from the medical profession, prisons, families, voluntary sector, law enforcement and local government, as well as individuals with direct experience of recovery, met for the first time on the 3 December 2009.

Question reference: S3W-30942

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 3 February 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive, given that health warnings about the dangers of mixing alcohol and caffeine are starting to appear in countries such as Canada, France, the Republic of Ireland, Sweden and Australia, (a) what impact such warnings would have in Scotland and (b) whether it plans to introduce such warnings.

Any warnings relating to the mixing of alcohol and caffeine would have to be based on evidence of harm. As the current evidence is inconclusive on the effects of mixing caffeine and alcohol it is not possible to assess the potential impact of such warnings.

We note the recent call for evidence from manufacturers on the safety of caffeinated alcoholic beverages by US Food and Drug Agency. We will review their findings should they be published and consider whether further research is necessary.

Question reference: S3W-30945

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 3 February 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what impact introducing a minimum price per unit of alcohol will have on the (a) cost and (b) levels of consumption of Buckfast tonic wine.

Minimum pricing is likely to predominately affect the low-cost, high-strength drinks, such as white cider, super strength lager and cheap vodka, that are favoured by harmful and hazardous drinkers. Fortified wines, including Buckfast, represent less than 2.4% of the total volume of alcohol sold in Scotland. Buckfast can cost around £7.50 for a 75cl bottle (15% ABV), which equates to 66p per unit.

Although no decision has been taken on a specific minimum price, it is unlikely that minimum pricing, on its own, will affect those drinks which are already expensive in comparison to their alcohol content. Any action to ban or restrict a specific product or products is likely to raise significant legal problems.

Question reference: S3W-30943

Asked by: Richard Baker, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 February 2010

To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is on the comments of the Cabinet Secretary for Justice on the Good Morning Scotland programme that “There isn't any scientific evidence at the moment that says caffeine has a correlation with violence and crime - really Buckfast, drunk usually in the west of Scotland, is part of a cocktail.”