Chamber and committees

For all intra-uterine fetal deaths or stillbirths this is a standard test in all maternity units and hospitals. Specialists will offer this test to all women with recurrent early miscarriage as set out in the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists'' guideline, and would recommend it was offered in cases of fetal loss of greater than 10 weeks gestation. http://www.rcog.org.uk/files/rcog-corp/uploaded-files/GT17RecurrentMiscarriage2003.pdf.

The blood tests for Hughes syndrome or antiphospholipid syndrome, are available in all NHS boards, and should be taken 12 weeks apart.

This is a rare cause of miscarriage and adverse pregnancy outcome, and for this reason, information is not collected or held centrally.

The First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth have already had their first meeting with the new Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Scotland on 14 May 2010 at St Andrews House. I spoke to the Secretary of State yesterday by phone, and hope to meet him in the next few weeks.

The First Minister raised a number of issues with the Prime Minister including: the agenda of respect in government to government relations and the application of current funding arrangements in relation to; the fossil fuel levy, capital acceleration, Olympic regeneration funding consequentials and the proposals for borrowing powers recommended in the Calman Commission Report.

When I meet the Secretary of State in the near future I hope to address the positive ongoing work of the Joint Ministerial Committee and Scotland''s role in Europe and EU Council Meetings.

I have asked Willie Pretswell, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

The proportion of ex service personnel within overall admissions is shown below on a year-by-year basis.

Year	% of Ex Service Personnel	Number of Individuals
2005	1.39	225
2006	1.47	257
2007	1.51	266
2008	1.60	276
2009	1.54	248
2010	1.29	47

Notes:

Data provided correct as of 2 March 2010.

Overall admissions only count each prisoner once in each calendar year.

Ex service personnel refers to those admitted to custody who have identified themselves, or been identified, to the Scottish Prison Service as being ex armed forces.

I have asked Willie Pretswell, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

The Scottish Prison Service delivers Primary Care Mental Health Services and Addiction Services to all prisoners based on assessed need. These are delivered through comprehensive multi-agency approaches that manage individualised care and offender management pathways to prisoners. Such individualised pathways include addressing and supporting a prisoner''s needs whilst in custody, planning and preparation for community reintegration, and the provision of continued support on liberation.

The allocation of funding to individual colleges is a matter exclusively for the Scottish Funding Council and not ministers. In general terms we expect the funding council to take funding decisions in a way which supports its statutory duty to secure the coherent provision of high quality further and higher education. I will ask the chief executive of the funding council to write to the member setting out its policy on this matter.

Since 1994, 66 prisoners who were reported as being ex-service personnel have been released on a parole licence and 65 on a non-parole licence. Five of these offenders, have been released on both licences for different sentences.

I have asked Willie Pretswell, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service, to respond. His response is as follows:

This information is not available. However as of 15 January 2010, the number of prisoners currently in custody, who reported being ex-service personnel on admission, and who have been referred to the Enhanced Addiction Casework Service for either a drug or alcohol problem, is 41.

This information is not held centrally.