Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government Housing Investment Division, as the grant provider, and Scottish Borders Council, as the strategic housing authority, jointly consider the use of affordable housing funding across the whole of the Scottish Borders including Berwickshire. The priorities for the Affordable Housing Investment Programme (AHIP) take their steer from the council''s Strategic Housing Investment Plan and Local Housing Strategy. Consideration is also given to the expected committed carry forward of funding together with geographic and tenure priorities across the whole Scottish Borders Council area.

The following table gives details of how many new units for affordable rent and low cost home ownership are, at this time, estimated to be completed in Berwickshire and the Scottish Borders. This data is provided in a financial year format reflecting how the data is recorded.

	Berwickshire only		All Scottish Borders
Financial Year	Affordable Rent	Low Cost Home Ownership	Affordable Rent	Low Cost Home Ownership
2009-10	0	0	21	4
2010-11	12	0	164	14

 

Scottish Borders Council has advised that there is no single waiting list figure for Berwickshire. There are a number of individual RSLs operating in the area, all with their own housing lists and allocation policies. These RSL housing lists, however, do not operate in terms of ˜waiting'' time but rather operate on the basis of housing need, therefore there is no waiting list as such.

Berwickshire Housing Association is the biggest RSL operating in the area, and it participates in the Borders Choice Homes Common Housing Register, a Choice Based Lettings approach. Applicants do not apply for housing in the traditional way. Applicants instead complete a single application form to register with the participating RSLs and can then bid for any property being offered for rent by any of these RSLs. It is therefore not possible to determine how many people are looking for affordable housing in the Berwickshire area via waiting list data.

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/sor1001-01.htm

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-26642 on 30 September 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions area 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.

BT has confirmed that, as of 3 September 2009, the telephone exchanges in the Scottish Borders which are at full capacity for broadband are Abbey St Bathans, Borthwickbrae and Grantshouse.

The Scottish Government announced on 23 September 2009 that it has agreed with BT a programme of upgrade work for exchanges to resolve the capacity issues currently being experienced. Please refer to our news release at the following website:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2009/09/23114104.

It is impossible to be absolutely precise on matters of prognosis for any disease. For this reason, it is not possible to give a meaningful figure for average life expectancy for those granted compassionate release.

This is an operational matter for Strathclyde Police.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3O-7591 on 3 September, which is available from the official report on the Parliament''s website:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-09/sor0903-02.htm#Col19271.

This information is not held centrally. Scottish Government expenditure is collated by spending programme (i.e. type of spend) and not by geographical area. Local government expenditure is available by council area and health board expenditure is available by health board area, neither can be disaggregated by parliamentary constituency.

As I explained to Parliament on 24 August, it has been suggested that Mr Megrahi could have been released from prison to reside elsewhere in Scotland. Clear advice from the Deputy Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police was that the security implications of such a move would be severe. A minimum of 48 officers would be required simply to allow Mr Megrahi to live in Scotland. I therefore ruled that out as an option. The advice has been published and is available at www.scotland.gov.uk/lockerbie.