Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government will issue its final thermal guidance later this year following the completion of the UK consultation process. This thermal guidance will set out policy on the introduction of CCS levels to new and existing power plant, in terms of timing and capacity.

Under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989, Scottish ministers are obliged to accept and consider all thermal power station applications in excess of 50 megawatts of generating capacity. Each application is subject to statutory consultation with the determination taking into account all material issues, including the thermal guidance applicable at the time the decision is made.

All thermal power station applications over 50 megawatts in generating capacity will be considered by Scottish ministers under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989. Following a request from Ayrshire Power Limited, Scottish Ministers provided a scoping opinion on 20 March 2009 on the Hunterston project, which included a wide range of consultee advice on the outline design. The developer is currently working in partnership with stakeholders to develop an application which addresses the relevant planning, community and legislative issues, and we have recommended to the developer that they take into account in any application our draft guidance and the answer to question S3W-24912 on 17 June 2009.

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/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989, the building of any new thermal power station in excess of 50 megawatts in generating capacity would require consent from Scottish ministers. The Scottish Government published draft thermal guidance in late 2008 for consultation. We await the completion of the UK Government consultation, before publishing our final thermal guidance in Scotland.

The Scotland Rural Development Programme under Rural Priorities offers farm businesses funding to diversify into alternative forms of agricultural production including energy crops, and a specific option to plant short rotation coppice crops for similar purpose.

This is to help them develop more sustainable businesses by responding to changing market demands and taking advantage of new market opportunities.

To attract support, a farmer has to show that the project will contribute towards agreed regional priorities established to aid delivery of key strategic outcomes, including adaptation to mitigate climate change and protection of biodiversity.

The Scottish Government would welcome an increase in EU funding for plant and animal genetic resources in areas where this reflects our current policies on plant and animal improvement.

In a deregulated dairy industry producers are free to make their own business decisions, including the volume of milk produced.

Entitlement to beef special premium payments for stock destined for bull fighting is a matter for the European Commission and those member states where such practices are permitted.

The Scottish Government commissions a programme of veterinary surveillance from the Scottish Agricultural College who report their activities on a quarterly basis. Our interest is to ensure that suitable geographical coverage is provided by the programme as a whole and not in the specific delivery of those services from individual investigation centres, therefore data on post-mortem numbers is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

This question was answered in the Chamber. The answer can be viewed in the Official Report using the following link:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-09/sor0917-01.htm