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-23359

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 13 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many Scottish Environment Protection Agency enforcement notices have been served against military facilities or installations in each year since 2003.

Question reference: S3W-23360

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 12 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether any of its officials or agencies have undertaken an assessment of the potential environmental and health impacts of radioactive contamination from the Faslane nuclear submarine base.

Yes. Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) routinely monitors the levels of radioactive contamination around Faslane. The purpose of this monitoring is to examine the dispersion of radioactive discharges from the site and to confirm the safety of the food chain. The results of its assessment are published annually in the Radioactivity in Food and the Environment (RIFE) report. The report is published jointly by SEPA, the Food Standards Agency, Environment Agency and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency.

A copy of the most recently published RIFE report covering 2007 (Bib. number 47127) and previous reports for 2003 to 2006 (Bib. numbers 34135, 37874, 40784 and 44134) are available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre and are publicly available on SEPA''s website at:

http://www.sepa.org.uk/radioactive_substances/rs_publications/rife_reports.aspx.

Question reference: S3W-23361

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 7 May 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider issuing guidance to police forces that pay for intelligence information from informants in relation to groups or organisations that are not criminal or violent in nature.

Question reference: S3W-22074

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 2 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-3432 by Stewart Stevenson on 3 September 2007, how many Scottish national entitlement card holders have qualified for a concessionary travel companion card since August 2007, broken down by local authority area.

Information available to Transport Scotland indicates that as of 27 February 2009 there were 1,122,846 valid National Entitlement Cards in circulation giving access to Scotland-Wide Free Bus Travel for Older and Disabled People.

The following table shows the number of National Entitlement Card holders who qualify for the companion entitlement as of 27 February 2009, broken down by local authority. The total number currently in circulation is 104,277.

Local Authority	Category of Disabled Plus Companion	Eligibility Visually Impaired Plus Companion	Totals
Aberdeen City	2,282	583	2,865
Aberdeenshire	1,512	403	1,915
Angus	660	137	797
Argyll and Bute	1,272	202	1,474
City of Edinburgh	9,167	1,188	10,355
Clackmannanshire	547	58	605
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	149	20	169
Dumfries and Galloway	1,207	429	1,636
Dundee City	2,445	405	2,850
East Ayrshire	2,472	231	2,703
East Dunbartonshire	1,121	149	1,270
East Lothian	1,674	226	1,900
East Renfrewshire	955	110	1,065
Falkirk	1,391	290	1,681
Fife	12,810	881	13,691
Glasgow	17,618	1,475	19,093
Highland	1,915	562	2,477
Inverclyde	2,256	209	2,465
Midlothian	1,626	232	1,858
Moray	703	180	883
North Ayrshire	2,953	361	3,314
North Lanarkshire	6,665	536	7,201
Orkney Islands	213	19	232
Perth and Kinross	953	252	1,205
Renfrewshire	3,577	379	3,956
Scottish Borders	861	221	1,082
Shetland Islands	228	24	252
South Ayrshire	2,047	265	2,312
South Lanarkshire	5,794	601	6,395
Stirling	611	133	744
West Dunbartonshire	2,292	242	2,534
West Lothian	3,029	269	3,298
Totals	93,005	11,272	104,277

Question reference: S3W-22034

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 1 April 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many referrals sportscotland made to ministers upholding objections to development on playing fields and in how many cases the objections were upheld in each year since 1999.

Sportscotland has no powers to notify planning applications to Scottish ministers. Where sportscotland lodges and maintains an objection it is the responsibility of the planning authority, if minded to grant planning consent, to decide whether the planning application requires to be notified to Scottish ministers. However, the following represents the number of planning applications notified by planning authorities since 1999:

Year	Cases Referred to Scottish Ministers due to Sportscotland Objections	Cases Called in by Scottish Ministers for Determination
1999-2000	1	1
2000-01	2	1
2001-02	0	0
2002-03	4	1
2003-04	2	0
2004-05	2	1
2005-06	3	1
2006-07	0	0
2007-08	2	1
2008-09	2	0

Question reference: S3W-21935

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 25 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will make representations to The National Archives in Surrey for the permanent return to Scotland of the William Wallace safe conduct letter.

I have asked George MacKenzie, Keeper of the Records of Scotland to respond. His response is as follows:

The Scottish Government has no plans to request The National Archives (TNA) to transfer the William Wallace document it possesses to The National Archives of Scotland (NAS). To make a successful claim, NAS would need to demonstrate that the document belonged to Wallace in an official capacity and was therefore a record of the early Scottish state. Experts in NAS do not believe that it is a safe conduct, nor is there clear evidence that it was taken from Wallace on his capture. It does not follow the form of a safe conduct, it does not say what a safe conduct of that time would have said, and it does not have an authenticating seal.

Any request for return of a document to Scotland must be based on clear evidence about its provenance. The 1297 Lubeck letter was created in Scotland but was addressed to the city of Lubeck and it is correct that it remains there. In the case of the Wallace document in TNA, NAS genuinely does not have enough evidence to substantiate a claim that it should be returned to Scotland.

The Wallace document is well looked after in TNA and there is a digital image on their website for anyone to view. NAS will shortly launch a website feature on documents which are of significant interest to Scottish history, but which, for good reason, have ended up outside the country, including the Lubeck letter, the Poppleton manuscript and this Wallace document.

Question reference: S3W-21937

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 13 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Jim Mather on 25 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive what support it is providing to grow the social enterprise sector in the current economic climate; how it publicises funding available to people wishing to set up such enterprises, and how many social enterprise companies there are.

We want Scotland to lead in the development of an enterprising third sector, including social enterprises. To support this we have increased direct investment in the sector by 37% to £93.6 million between 2008 and 2011.

We have announced support for third sector organisations, and for individuals who want to start up a new social enterprise. Information on the Enterprise Fund (£12 million) and the Social Entrepreneurs Fund (£1 million) is available on the Scottish Government website and through intermediaries such as First Port, SCVO, and the Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition.

There are no official statistics available on the number of social enterprises operating in Scotland because social enterprises do not have a separate legal status.

Question reference: S3F-01531

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Alex Salmond on 12 March 2009

To ask the First Minister what consideration the Scottish Government has given to the Scottish Information Commissioner’s call to extend the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 to cover a wider range of organisations.

Question reference: S3O-06240

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 March 2009
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider carrying out an economic impact assessment in relation to the support that it and other public bodies provide for football, in light of petition PE 1233 submitted by former Scotland coach Craig Brown regarding the creation of a Great Britain football team.

Question reference: S3W-20866

Asked by: Christine Grahame, MSP for South of Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 February 2009
Current Status: Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 6 March 2009

To ask the Scottish Executive how many emergency hospital readmissions there have been of people aged (a) 50 to 64, (b) 65 to 74 and (c) 75 and over in each year since 1999, broken down by NHS board.

The information requested has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre under Emergency Hospital Readmissions (Surgical Data) “ (Bib. number 47839) and Emergency Hospital Readmissions (Medical Data) “ (Bib. number 47840).

The tables show information on the number of emergency hospital admissions within 28 days of discharge by NHS board of treatment for people aged 50 to 64 years, 65 to 74 years and 75 years and over for calendar years 1999-2007. The information is presented separately for surgical and medical speciality groupings as the readmission rates can differ markedly between these two groups.