Chamber and committees

When they were let, the 25 passenger rail franchises in Great Britain were designed steadily to reduce the Government's support for passenger rail services. This reduction is currently treated by the UK Treasury as a general saving to the Exchequer. The estimated total value of franchise payments to ScotRail is £1.749 billion for the period 1997-98 - 2003-04. The estimated cumulative reduction of franchise payments for the same period, compared to the amounts which would have been paid had payments continued at the 1997-98 level, will be £0.271 billion. Corresponding reductions are taking place in the other franchises throughout Great Britain. Details of the ScotRail franchise are set out in the table below.

Investment in the railway industry in Scotland and elsewhere in Great Britain is principally a matter for the industry itself. In its 1999 Network Management Statement for Scotland, Railtrack outlined investment of some £2.2 billion over the next ten years. ScotRail is investing around £170 million in new trains that will enter service between now and 2001. Public sector support for passenger rail franchises underwrites almost all of this investment. Rail services are eligible for support from the Scottish Executive Public Transport Fund, totalling £90 million between 1999 and 2002. The Rail Passenger Partnership scheme, for which £105 million is available over the next three years, is administered by the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority on a GB basis.

SCOTRAIL FRANCHISE PAYMENTS 1997-2004 (£000s)

YEAR	TOTAL VALUE1	TOTAL REDUCTIONS2
1997-98*	£288,6313
1998-99**	£280,1773	£8,454
1999-2000***	£264,601	£24,030
2000-01	£248,096	£40,535
2001-02	£232,719	£55,912
2002-03	£220,999	£67,632
2003-04	£213,859	£74,772
TOTAL	£1,749,082	£271,335

* Feb 1997 prices ** Feb 1998 prices *** 1999 - 2004: Feb 1999 prices

Notes:

1. For Strathclyde PTE-funded services, revenues are paid to SPTE and offset their franchise payments to ScotRail: these revenues are estimated at £309 million for 1997-98 - 2003-04.

2. Reductions are calculated against baseline year 1997-1998.3. The figures for 1997-98 and 1998-99 include incentive payments to ScotRail.

I have now answered question number S1W-2310. The delay was due to the need to collate and analyse financial information from within and outwith the Scottish Executive to enable a full answer to be made.

The document submitted to the Health Department was a draft of an outline business case: the Department's response explained in some detail the process to be followed to produce a substantive business case and encouraged the Health Board to ensure its specific proposals were consistent with the conclusions reached in its ongoing overall review of services.

The results of the monitoring for tritium in landfill leachate during 1998 are published in the Radioactivity in Food and the Environment, 1998 report (RIFE - 4). An extract from the relevant table containing this information is reproduced below.

Area	Location
Aberdeen City	Ness Tip
City of Edinburgh	Braehead
City of Glasgow	Summerston Tip
Clakmannanshire	Black Devon
Dundee City	Riverside
East Dunbartonshire	Birdston Tip
Fife	Balbarton
Fife	Melville Wood
Highland	Longman Tip
North Lanarkshire	Dalmacoulter
North Lanarkshire	Kilgarth
Stirling	Lower Polmaise

Levels of tritium leachate from landfill are of very low radiological significance. SEPA is currently working on a study to determine the likely source of tritium within the landfill leachate. It is likely to be some time before the findings of this study will be available.

The arguments advanced by the United Kingdom Government at the European Court are summarised in the official Report for the Hearing (Case C-359/97) prepared by the Judge-Rapporteur. A copy of that report is being placed in the Parliament's Information Centre.

I welcomed Mr Crawford's letter and regret it took some time to provide a reply. He raised a number of interesting issues that I wished to consider in depth. However I was able to reply to him on 19 January.

I am not aware of any such representations from the Royal College of Physicians.

PQ S1W-2441 was answered on 22 December 1999.

Area Tourist Boards are core funded by discretionary grant aid from the Scottish Tourist Board and from local authorities, by membership subscription and by income from commercial activities. They receive no direct funding from the Scottish Executive.

No specific funding has been provided to Health Boards in 1999-2000 to cover winter pressures. For 1999-2000 Health Boards received a general allocation to meet the health care needs of their resident population including any pressure for services arising from seasonal peaks in demand, especially during the winter.