Chamber and committees

For this financial year we have allocated £14.4million to the National Museums of Scotland, which are mainly located in Edinburgh. Minister's have a statutory responsibility for these museums.

The Executive does not provide direct financial support to other museums in Edinburgh or Glasgow, or in any other local authority area. Funding of these museums is the responsibility of those who own and operate them. However, local authority museums are funded from the Grant Aided Expenditure provided by the Executive. GAE for leisure and recreation in Glasgow is £45 million and Edinburgh is £29.3 million

Information on waiting lists is collected centrally only for hospital inpatients and day cases. Most consultations and treatments for patients with mental health problems are undertaken on an outpatient or day hospital basis and, therefore, information on the number of patients waiting for such treatment is not held centrally.

Data is collected centrally on first outpatient referrals and the length of time that patients waited for their first outpatient appointment. Information on waiting times for a first outpatient appointment for all specialties, including those for mental health, is given in table M6.7 on page 206 of Scottish Health Statistics 1999, which was published by the Information and Statistics Division of the Common Services Agency in March this year, a copy of which is available in the SPICe (Bib number 6937).

I refer Mr Gibson to the answer that the Minister for Finance gave to question S1W-7229.

The table below contains details of the number of manufacturing jobs attracted to Scotland through inward investment in each of the last five years and how many of these jobs were in Glasgow.

Year	No of manufacturing jobs attracted to Scotland	No of manufacturing jobs attracted to Glasgow
1995-96	7,673	227
1996-97	7,787	137
1997-98	3,749	73
1998-99	4,380	149
1999-2000	5,901	190

Details of the Executive's expenditure plans to 31 March 2002 are in the Annual Expenditure Report entitled Investing in You. A copy is available in SPICe. Bodies other than the Executive have responsibilities for road infrastructure, rail and land reclamation in Glasgow. The Executive does not have details of their investment plans. The Executive plans to spend around £31 million on motorways and trunk roads in Glasgow in the period to 31 March 2002.

Scottish Enterprise Glasgow has a budget of £50.253 million for 2000-01, its functions include safeguarding employment, enhancing skills, promoting industrial efficiency and international competitiveness and furthering improvements to the environment.

Glasgow City Council are budgeting to spend £25.256 million on economic development in 2000-01.

The Scottish Executive plans to spend £31 million on the Motorway and Trunk Road network in Glasgow in the period to 31 March 2002, other transport infrastructure improvements and spend are not the responsibility of the Scottish Executive.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is responsible for the protection of the quality of the River Clyde. It routinely monitors chemical, biological and hydrological parameters to gauge the health of various sectors of the river. Water authorities and industry require consents from SEPA, which are regularly reviewed, under the Control of Pollution Act 1974, to discharge effluent to the water environment. SEPA uses the information gained through its monitoring programme to set appropriate conditions for these consents. Enforcement action is taken where discharges breach these consents.

SEPA may also take enforcement action through various regulations to ensure that storage facilities, farming practices and waste disposal are properly controlled.

Services such as a 24-hour hotline to report pollution incidents and the production of guidance leaflets and other publicly available materials are used to encourage better practice to protect the environment. In particular, SEPA West Region has recently produced an information pack, which includes a CD ROM, to provide information about the West of Scotland's water environment. A copy of this pack has been placed in the SPICe (Bib number 6765).

SEPA published a report, Improving Scotland's Water Environment outlining measures undertaken to minimise water pollution, and the targets towards which it is working. A copy is available in SPICe (Bib number 2964).

The West of Scotland Water Authority also plays an important role in maintaining and improving the quality of the water in the river. The Authority discharges effluent into the river and its tributaries from several water supply and wastewater treatment works along its banks and from storm-water overflows from the sewerage network. The existing treatment works are operated so as to optimise the quality of the effluent discharged and minimise their impact on the river. The Authority has invested, and will continue to invest, very significant sums in the modernisation and replacement of works along the river-bank.

On the freshwater section of the Clyde notable works are:

• The provision of tertiary treatment to the wastewater treatment works at Daldowie to ensure that the quality of effluent discharged into the river is improved, and

• The improvement of storm-water overflows known to operate in an unsatisfactory manner so as to reduce the number and duration of discharges of storm-water into the adjacent watercourse so that impact of these water courses on the river will be minimised.

Information about the estuarial and coastal sections of the Clyde may be found in the information pack referred to above.

The Scottish Executive is currently working with CoSLA and Scottish Trading Standards representatives to improve the enforcement of underage sales. However, there are presently no plans to introduce a system of negative licensing in Scotland.

The Scottish Executive is committed to seeing a marked improvement in non-smoking facilities in leisure and hospitality amenities. The Scottish Voluntary Charter on Smoking in Public Places which was recently launched by the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, the Scottish Tourism Forum, the British Hospitality Association and the Brewers & Licensed Retailers Association of Scotland should help ensure this improvement. I will be looking for clear evidence that the Charter is working.

The health risks from passive smoking are clear. The Executive will be working closely with Charter signatories to agree realistic and clear targets against which to measure its success.