Chamber and committees

I have asked MikeEwart, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to respond. His response is as follows:

The following tableillustrates the number of incidents recorded where a prisoner has escaped whilebeing escorted from an SPS establishment. Reliable information is not availableprior to 2001.

2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
4	1	1	3	0	5	3

 

The ScottishGovernment has had many meetings with the EU since May 2007. Focusing on ministerialmeetings, the First Minister met European Commissioners Borg (Fisheries andMaritime Affairs), Grybauskaite (Budget), Mandelson (Trade) and McCreevy(Internal Market and Services) when visiting Brussels on 11 July. He discusseda range of Scottish interests in relation to each of the Commissionersportfolios.

He also met withCommissioner Piebalgs (Energy) in Edinburgh on 19 Julywhere carbon capture and storage projects, renewable energy targets and otherenergy issues were discussed.

The CabinetSecretary for Education and Lifelong Learning and I met with Commissioner Figel(Education) on 28 June where we discussed higher education issues, the EuropeanInstitute of Technology and the Erasmus programme.

Richard Lochhead,along with the EU Commission, Ministers and representatives from all the other memberstates, attended the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Luxembourg on 11-12June where the main issues on the agenda were: reform of the fruit andvegetables sector, rules on organic production and labelling, a single CommonMarket Organisation, recovery plans for Baltic cod, for blue fin tuna and forEuropean eel, and the Greenland fisheries partnership.

Finally, this isnot the appropriate forum for me to list each of the many meetings thatScottish Government officials have had with the EU Institutions since May. However,I will say that Scottish Government officials, from our EU Office in Brussels,and from Scotland, frequently attend working group meetings in the Council of the EU as well as management committees chaired by the Commission.

Officials alsoattend meetings in the European Parliament and have discussions with EuropeanCommission officials on issues of importance to Scotland, particularly in relation to fisheries, agriculture, justice,structural funds, energy and environment matters.

This outbreakwas a matter for the local health board. The outbreak in Paisley was therefore investigated andmanaged by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde in close collaboration with Environmental Health, the Food StandardsAgency, Health Protection Scotland and the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service.The Scottish Government was inclose communication with the local Board and Health Protection Scotland throughoutthe incident.

Once the outbreakis declared over the health board will follow up its own investigations with a report.

I referthe member to the answer to question S3W-2934 on 23 August 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.