Chamber and committees

Final data on court proceedings concluded in 2002 are now expected to be available at the end ofFebruary.

There is no generalstatutory or common law offence of trafficking in humans. It was an offenceunder section 25 of the Immigration Act 1971 to assist unlawful immigration. Dataare currently available for 1989 to 2002; the information for 2002 isprovisional. In this period there were three convictions in Scottish courts foroffences under section 25.

Section 25 of the 1971 actwas replaced in February 2003 by section 143 of the Nationality, Immigrationand Asylum Act 2002. In addition, section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland)Act 2003 introduced a new offence of trafficking for the purposes ofprostitution. There have been as yet no convictions under these provisions.

Negotiations in the intergovernmentalconference (IGC) were a matter for the UK Government. The Scottish Executive, however, worked closely with the UK Government from the outset of theConvention on the Future of Europe and throughout the IGC to ensure thatScottish interests were taken into account. Scottish Executive ministers andofficials raised Scottish interests in writing and at meetings with the UKGovernment.

The Scottish Executive in particular sought to ensure that the draft treaty language on the principleof subsidiarity and the role of regional governments was supported throughoutthe IGC. In addition, in the case of proposals to extend qualified majority votingor to extend competences of the EU, the Scottish Executive worked to ensure that any proposedchanges to current procedures were in the best interests of the Scottishpeople. The Scottish Executive also contributed to the UK white paperon the British Government’s Approach to the IGC.

Any death from fire is atragedy and the Executive is fully aware of Scotland’s appalling record offire fatalities. However, we take some comfort that there has been anunderlying downward trend in fire fatalities in Scotland over the past decadeand we want this trend to continue. The Executive will therefore use the newlegislation to work with the service and others to place an even greateremphasis on fire prevention to further reduce the level of deaths and injuriesfrom fire. But we do not believe that it would be appropriate or indeed helpfulto use primary legislation to set targets for the level of fire fatalities.

Discussions on this frameworkdecision are on-going and officials are in regular contact with Home Office onthis matter.

To date only the non-residentialaspects of the Time Out Centre have been in operation. Five hundred and twentyone women have so far been assessed for these services. Of these, 163, or 31%,were on methadone; 143, or 27%, had a heroin problem; and 80, or 15%, hadalcohol problems.

Of the 30 women currentlymaking use of the service, 18 (60%) have a heroin problem. In addition 12 (40%)of the 30 women have alcohol problems, a number of whom also use heroin.

The Time Out Centre is dueto be fully operational from 16 December and will be available 24 hours a day,every day of the year. In addition to the day programmes, there will be a six beddetox unit and an eight bed supported accommodation unit, which it is estimatedwill be used annually by up to 85 and 50 women, respectively.

I have asked Tony Cameron,Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

I and Ed Wozniak, Head of businessand analytical services, represented SPS at the International Corrections and PrisonsAssociation, of which we are national members, where I chaired part of the conferenceand Ed Wozniak delivered a paper. The costs of approximately £5,200 were metfully by SPS.

This is a matter for the NewOpportunities Fund, which can be contacted at 33 Bothwell Street, Glasgow G2 6NL.

The sources of the nationaland local drug misuse statistics which are provided annually to Drug ActionTeams by the Information and Statistics Division of the Common Services Agency(ISD Scotland) to inform service planning are available at:http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/dat/cap/dat.htm.

The Scottish Executive doesnot make forecasts of this type. However, it has undertaken to carry outnational prevalence work on a regular basis to inform policy and practice andto monitor trends over time.The first nationalprevalence study was undertaken in 2000 and the results can be accessed at http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/publications/local/Prevalence.pdf The study for 2003 is currently under way and will produce estimates of numbersof problem drug users at both national and local level. The study is due toreport in August 2004.