Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S3W-20798

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 4 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it considers that GPs are prescribing antibiotics appropriately and how prescribing is monitored.

As with all medicines the decision whether or not to prescribe antibiotics for a patient is a matter for the clinical judgement of the prescriber, informed by advice and evidence about the medicine.

NHS boards have Prescribing Advisers who monitor the use of medicines by GP practices using data collected by NHS National Services Scotland, and produce feedback reports for GPs. In addition Prescribing Advisers use prescribing indicators to monitor trends in antibiotic use.

Each NHS board requires to have an Antimicrobial Management Team which has a remit for antimicrobial stewardship in both secondary and primary care.

Question reference: S3W-20804

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 4 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will carry out an independent evaluation of the National Debtline and publish the results.

Question reference: S3W-20801

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 4 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what the cost is of the National Debtline and what its period of operation is expected to be.

The Scottish Government is providing £100,000 a year until 2010-11 to the Money Advice Trust, which runs National Debtline. This funding is to ensure that advisors are appropriately trained to provide advice on, for example, the different debt solutions available in Scotland. National Debtline anticipates spending £7.3 million in total during 2009. National Debtline started operating in April 1987. There is no planned end date.

Question reference: S3W-20583

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 3 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-20033 by Nicola Sturgeon on 29 January 2009, how many of the 16 cases of the 078 strain of Clostridium difficile resulted in the death of the patient.

There have been four deaths in total as detailed below:

NHS Board	No of Isolates	No of Deaths
Ayrshire and Arran	4	1 (Contributory factor)
Fife	2	1 (Contributory factor)
Grampian	1	None
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	4	1 (Contributory factor)
Highland	1	None
Lothian	2	1 (Contributory factor)
Tayside	2	None
Total	16	4

Question reference: S3W-20533

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 3 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what the size is of the marine industry in terms of the number of companies and employees.

Question reference: S3W-20532

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 3 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what support it provides to the marine industry.

This question concerns statistics and government support for the marine industry. This includes such industries as sea fishing, aquaculture, ports, shipping, marine boat and ship building.

Scotland''s Seas: Towards Understanding their State, published in April 2008, contains an analysis of economic activity in the marine environment. Table 5.3 in Chapter 5 (page 117) (Bib. number 45262), on Productive Seas, contains the first overall assessment of the economic value and associated employment of Scotland''s seas and summarises the economic value and employment for a range of marine-related industry. The report highlights that the seas generate around £2.2 billion of marine-industry activity (excluding offshore oil and gas extraction activity) and provide approximately 50,000 jobs in Scotland. The Scottish Government does not have readily available separate figures on leisure, commercial and defence work.

From an alternative source, the number of enterprises in Scotland, following the same categories as table 5.3 in Scotland''s Seas are in the following table:

Number of Enterprises¹in the Marine-Related Industries in Scotland

Industry	Enterprises
Sea fishing	1,695
Fish farming	160
Service activities incidental to oil and gas extraction	175
Processing and preserving of fish and fish products	150
Building and repairing of ships and boats	160
Construction of water projects	20
Sea and coastal water transport	180
Total	2,545

Source: Scottish Government, Office of National Statistics (Inter Departmental Business Register) published October 2008.

Notes:

Totals may not equal the sum of the constituent parts due to rounding.

1. Excludes central and local government.

Government support, in terms of finance and in providing a framework in which industry can develop, is varied. For example:

1. The Wave and Tidal Energy Scheme (WATES) comprises of £13 million in capital support for the development of marine renewable technologies. Scotland is establishing the precedent of offering higher revenue support for marine renewable technologies through its Renewables Obligation. The £10 million Saltire Prize aims to accelerate the commercial deployment of wave and tidal devices. The Scottish Government has created one of the world''s largest ever innovation prizes to stimulate global innovation in these technologies. Scottish Government is also supporting the growth of the marine renewable industry through FREDS Marine Energy Group (MEG) and the Marine Energy Spatial Planning Group.

2. The principal financial support mechanism for the fishing, processing and aquaculture sectors is provided through the European Fisheries Fund. The current programme allocation administered by Scottish Government between 2007 and 2013 is worth approximately £50 million in capital support. This fund underpins Government support for specific industry strategy and policy initiatives such as the Strategic Framework for Scottish Aquaculture and the strategic direction given to the fishing sector by the Scottish Fisheries Council.

3. Support has been provided by RSA Scotland, Scottish Enterprise and its former Local Enterprise Companies to both naval and civil shipbuilders. Over £8 million worth of grants have been awarded for a variety of initiatives to create and safeguard jobs, to improve the various businesses and to up-skill the workforces. The Scottish Government and its agencies are working actively with the shipbuilding and boat building industry to consolidate and to further develop Scotland''s position in this area. Scottish Enterprise is developing an industry strategy for Aerospace, Defence and Marine which is being led and informed by a newly-formed industry advisory group.

4. This government''s overarching Purpose is to increase sustainable economic growth in Scotland and, through our Government Economic Strategy, we have identified Scotland''s fisheries as a major component of our food and drink sector and as an area where government is focused on creating the right environment for increased competitiveness and growth.

Question reference: S3W-20535

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 3 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how it intends to develop the marine industry.

Question reference: S3W-20534

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 3 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what the economic value is of the marine industry, broken down by (a) leisure, (b) commercial and (c) defence work.

Question reference: S3W-20584

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 2 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-20034 by Nicola Sturgeon on 29 January 2009, whether studies into the virulence of the 078 strain of Clostridium difficile are being undertaken and, if so, when will they report.

Question reference: S3W-20585

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 27 February 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive when it first reported the 078 strain of Clostridium difficile to the Parliament.

I refer the member to the answer to S3W-20033 on 29 January 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions can be found on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

It has also been publicly reported through Health Protection Scotland since December 2007 “ and further information is available on the Health Protection Scotland website by accessing the following link: http://www.documents.hps.scot.nhs.uk/hai/sshaip/publications/cdad/2007-12-20-ar-cdad.pdf.