- Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 July 2015
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Current Status:
Answered by John Swinney on 19 August 2015
To ask the Scottish Government what the total cost will be of registering all land owned by the public sector in the five years from December 2014.
Answer
There are two areas of cost associated with registration: registration fees and costs incurred by the applicant in preparing their registration application.
Registration fees are set by Scottish Ministers by way of affirmative order in the Scottish Parliament. Fees are charged on an ad valorem basis and with a 25% reduction for applications made on a voluntary basis. Registers of Scotland estimates that voluntary registration fees for the 343,000 public sector titles will be between circa £15.5 million and circa £85 million, depending on a number of factors, most importantly, the value of public sector assets and the number of titles constituting their landholdings.
The costs incurred by an applicant vary considerably and depend on the quality of the records held. Organisations which have a digitised, map-based asset register will have low costs; those with a limited understanding of the legal extent of their land holdings will face much higher costs.
- Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 May 2015
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 21 May 2015
To ask the Scottish Government how many single application forms for rural payments and services have been fully processed under the new information technology system.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 21 May 2015
- Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 09 March 2015
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona McLeod on 20 March 2015
To ask the Scottish Government how much extra funding it will provide to NHS Borders to implement the named persons provisions of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.
Answer
NHS Borders received £42,298 for additional health visitors this year (2014-15) to support the implementation of the named person provisions in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.
The named person will work closely with families and is the single point of contact that families told us they wanted. This will take the form of a health visitor from birth until they start primary school. The Scottish Government announced in June 2014 funding of £41.6 million over the next four years for additional health visitors across Scotland. This will help health boards ensure they have enough health visitors to provide universal visits for all families and meet their obligations under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.
In addition, a further £1.5 million is being invested to update health visitor education.
- Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 March 2015
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Matheson on 19 March 2015
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the Scottish Court Service being able to require courts to share business on alternative weeks, reducing the number of locations at which criminal and civil business is dealt with, without public consultation or parliamentary approval.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-24797 on 19 March 2015. 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/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.
- Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 March 2015
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Matheson on 19 March 2015
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will consider changing the rules relating to the powers of sheriffs principal, allowing them to make courts share business on alternative weeks without public consultation or parliamentary approval.
Answer
Section 15 of the Sheriff Courts Act 1971 (‘the 1971 Act’) as amended by section 47 of the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008 (‘the 2008 Act’) provides that it is the responsibility of the sheriff principal in each sheriffdom to secure the efficient disposal of business in the sheriff courts of that sheriffdom. This is re-iterated in section 27(1) of the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 (‘the 2014 Act’). Both the 2008 and the 2014 Acts were passed unanimously by the Scottish Parliament.
Neither the 1971 nor the 2014 Act requires the sheriff principal or the Scottish Court Service to consult prior to making any decision regarding the efficient disposal of business.
The Scottish Government has no plans to amend the legislation.
- Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 06 March 2015
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Current Status:
Answered by Fergus Ewing on 19 March 2015
To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting economic development in communities along the A7 south of Hawick.
Answer
The Scottish Government works closely with a wide range of partners, including Scottish Enterprise, Dumfries and Galloway Council and Scottish Borders Council as partners in the South of Scotland Alliance, to create the right conditions necessary to support businesses, create employment opportunities and facilitate sustainable economic growth for communities along the A7 south of Hawick.
That commitment can be clearly demonstrated by the £410 million being invested by the Scottish Government and its public and private sector partners in our Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme which, alongside commercial deployment by BT and other operators, will deliver fibre broadband access to 95% of premises in Scotland by 2017-18. The programme will deliver significant coverage benefits to Canonbie, Hollows, Langholm, Teviothead, and Newmill.
We have also established Community Broadband Scotland, a £7.5 million initiative that is supporting the development of community-led schemes in those areas that are unlikely to have a superfast solution delivered commercially, or by the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme. Community Broadband Scotland is engaged with a number of communities in the area including Eskdalemuir, with a view to the development of an aggregated approach to encourage the commercial delivery of superfast broadband to these communities.
- Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 March 2015
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 17 March 2015
To ask the Scottish Government what the occupancy rate has been for (a) acute and (b) non-acute wards in NHS Borders in each month since March 2014.
Answer
Information is available for the average monthly occupancy rate of hospital beds. The following table shows average occupancy rate (%) for acute and non-acute specialties in NHS Borders for the months March to September 2014.
Occupancy rate (%) for acute and non-acute specialties in NHS Borders by
month; March to September 2014.
| | Mar 2014 | Apr 2014 | May 2014 | Jun 2014 | Jul 2014 | Aug 2014 | Sep 2014 |
| Acute Specialties | 88.6 | 88.0 | 87.9 | 88.5 | 83.6 | 83.9 | 88.2 |
| Non-Acute Specialties | 73.9 | 83.4 | 80.6 | 78.9 | 66.5 | 78.3 | 80.0 |
Source: Information Services Division Scotland, ISD(S)1
Official statistics on the number of hospital beds relating to the quarters ending December 2014 and March 2015 will be will be published by ISD in March 2015 and June 2015 respectively.
- Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 February 2015
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 4 March 2015
To ask the Scottish Government how many jobs have been connected to the fishing industry in Berwickshire in each year since 1999.
Answer
The number of fishermen employed in Berwickshire fishing creeks is given in the following table:
Total number of fishermen employed in Berwickshire 1999 to 2013
| | Burnmouth | Cove | Eyemouth | St Abbs | Total |
| 1999 | 16 | 3 | 98 | 28 | 145 |
| 2000 | 17 | 2 | 149 | 16 | 184 |
| 2001 | 12 | 3 | 136 | 11 | 162 |
| 2002 | 7 | 1 | 100 | 10 | 118 |
| 2003 | 8 | 2 | 99 | 10 | 119 |
| 2004 | 8 | 2 | 97 | 9 | 116 |
| 2005 | 8 | 2 | 99 | 7 | 116 |
| 2006 | 8 | 2 | 104 | 5 | 119 |
| 2007 | 10 | 2 | 89 | 5 | 106 |
| 2008 | 7 | 2 | 65 | 5 | 79 |
| 2009 | 9 | 2 | 62 | 6 | 79 |
| 2010 | 21 | 6 | 74 | - | 101 |
| 2011 | 17 | 4 | 64 | 14 | 99 |
| 2012 | 19 | 4 | 59 | 14 | 96 |
| 2013 | 22 | 5 | 73 | 15 | 115 |
- Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 19 February 2015
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 4 March 2015
To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting jobs in the fishing industry in Berwickshire.
Answer
The Scottish Government places a high importance on the fishing industry and the benefits it brings to local communities such as those in Berwickshire and has been working with other government agencies to provide assistance to help maintain and indeed create new jobs locally in both the onshore and offshore sectors.
The Scottish Government fought hard and proactively in the annual EU fisheries negotiations to secure the best deal for Scotland’s fishermen in 2015 – of course respecting science and sustainability issues – and thinking ahead to creating the best starting point for negotiating quota for 2016 under the first year of the demersal landing obligation. Helpfully, to fishermen on the east coast, an increase in the Scottish share of the North Sea quota for Nephrops was secured.
We are also taking steps to empower local communities. The east coast Inshore Fisheries Group (IFG) includes the Berwickshire area. IFGs are non-statutory bodies that aim to improve the management of Scotland’s inshore fisheries (out to six nautical miles) and to give commercial inshore fishermen a strong voice in wider marine management developments. Our national inshore fisheries programme is actively supporting these ambitions, from testing new technologies to researching new approaches to managing the interactions between mobile and static fishing vessels in the inshore environment.
The government has utilised the European Fisheries Fund to make 12 awards to a range of fisheries related businesses in Berwickshire since 2008 amounting to £588,000 which has enabled investment of £1.5 million and a target of 49 jobs. Examples include five fishing vessel modernisation grants totalling £27,000 which have enabled investment of £104,000, three fishing port facilities projects at Eyemouth Harbour attracting grants of £142,000 enabling investment of £188,000 and creating 11 jobs, and four processing and marketing grants totalling £419,000 which enabled investment of £1.23 million in facilities and plant and which aim to create 38 jobs.
The government will also work to maximise the benefit to fishing communities, such as those in Berwickshire, of the successor European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), which will provide a widened package of support for marine actions. We plan to launch the new scheme later this year. The Scottish allocation of the EMFF is over 107 euros and will be co-financed with domestic funds.
A Scottish Creel Support Fund was launched in February 2014 to support this sector which suffered due to the exceptional weather during the winter of 2012-13. The government made available over £400,000 to assist the sector in two ways, £300,000 direct funding of which £40,000 was awarded to 20 fishermen in the south east of Scotland. Additionally funding totalling £100,000 was provided to assist with developing new and existing markets for creel caught produce.
The UK-wide Coastal Communities Fund (CCF), administered by the Big Lottery Fund in Scotland, has awarded over £190,000 to two fisheries projects in the last three years; the Firth of Forth Lobster Hatchery received funds to develop a lobster hatchery based at North Berwick Harbour, and Seton Care received funds to deliver training programmes to those in the fisheries, offshore and processing sectors around the coast from the Forth to East Berwickshire.
Whilst there are no further rounds of CCF funding expected, the Smith Commission recommendations will enable us to make sure that island and coastal local authorities receive 100% of net revenues generated from the existing functions of the Crown Estate in Scottish waters out to 12 nautical miles so that coastal and island communities can benefit in future from the assets currently administered by the Crown Estate.
- Asked by: John Lamont, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 February 2015
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Current Status:
Answered by Shona Robison on 3 March 2015
To ask the Scottish Government how many short-term private nursing home places NHS Borders has purchased in each month since April 2014.
Answer
NHS Borders purchased the following care home places since April 2014.
|
Month
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Care home places purchased
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April 2014
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3
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May 2014
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3
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December 2014
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5
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January 2015
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13
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February 2015
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11
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All these places were to reduce the delayed discharge levels. The 29 places since December 2014 were purchased using NHS Borders’ share of the £5 million allocated in November 2014 from the Scottish Government to reduce delayed discharges.
