Chamber and committees

There has been no recent impact assessment relating to the charging of patients to access their medical records in Scotland. Such charges, when imposed, are in accordance with the Data Protection Act (1998) which sets a limit of £50.

This charge covers part of the actual administrative cost of locating, assembling, re-formatting, redacting and presenting a medical record held in many formats (paper and digital) on multiple clinical systems.

However, health boards and GP practices are encouraged to share free of charge as much information with patients as possible as part of their normal care so that recourse to making a subject access request under the Data Protection Act can be avoided.

The Scottish Government recognises the opportunities offered by social media and its important role in helping to communicate the government’s purpose. The Scottish Government does not routinely reply to questions posed on our main social media profiles. However, a number of policy areas have their own accounts where they do engage directly with the online community.

The Scottish Government believes that everyone, including businesses, should pay the tax that is due.

While we do not have access to detailed HMRC data, it is possible to estimate the value of the “Tax Gap”, defined as the difference between the total expected liability for Corporation Tax and the estimated actual receipts collected in Scotland.

Based on the HMRC’s most recent estimate of the “Tax Gap” for corporation tax at the UK level of 8.8% in 2010-11, we estimate that the value of the “Tax Gap” for onshore corporation tax in Scotland to be around £300 million in 2010-11.

Nuclear material is transported by rail in dedicated flasks with exceptional crashworthiness and has been safely and continuously transported on a daily basis for over forty years without incident. The process and procedures for rail movements of nuclear materials are common across the whole of the U.K., and this route has been used previously for the movement of radioactive material.

It is the responsibility of the NDA and their rail contractor Direct Rail Services Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary, to ensure safe transportation of nuclear materials from Caithness to Cumbria.

In February 2012, the NDA issued a ‘credible options’ consultation paper, which noted the environmental aspects of each of the options for processing the remainder of the stock at Dounreay. Various stakeholder groups, including local authorities in the vicinity of both Dounreay and Sellafield, and the Dounreay Stakeholder Group, were involved in the consultation. The preferred option was published in February 2013, namely the movement of the materials to Sellafield for long term management.

Since 1999, the Scottish Government has paid revenue mode-shift freight grants totalling £1,767,488 to Direct Rail Services Ltd. These grant payments were made to enable the company to transfer commercial freight from road to rail on a number of rail services operating in Scotland, as well as some services between Scotland and England, in which circumstances costs were shared with the Department for Transport.

The Scottish Government notes that the NDA published, on 21 February 2013, its preferred option to transport Dounreay exotics to Sellafield. Scottish Government officials will continue to have regular discussions with the NDA about the progress of these proposals and seek assurances that the NDA continues to engage effectively with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

Scottish Government officials have regular discussions with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and UK Government on performance against the NDA activities set out in their annual business plan. The Scottish Government supports the NDA activity to complete the delivery of nuclear fuel shipments to Sellafield. This activity will progress the decommissioning programme at Dounreay and help the NDA safely and securely manage its nuclear material. The Scottish Government also welcomes steps taken by the NDA to engage effectively with stakeholders including local authorities and communities in Scotland in the lead-up to this work being undertaken.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-15191 on 6 June 2013. 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

The Scottish Government expects any transportation of radioactive waste and nuclear material to be done in a safe and secure manner, and in full compliance with the strict national and international regulations.