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: S1W-08267

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 10 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive, in the light of the House of Commons Select Committee on Health's concern that the current Scottish guidance on the use of children in test purchase cases has not been modified, what action it intends to take in response to the committee's recommendation about the achievement of a uniformity of approach towards tackling sales of tobacco products to children.

There is no action planned at present.

The particular aspect of the guidance which applies, i.e. in relation to the use of children for test purchasing, is based on policy set by the Crown Office. The Lord Advocate has clearly stated that children should not be used to test purchase tobacco products as part of the local enforcement activity. This is also the view of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS). Scottish Executive officials are working with local government representatives on measures to improve enforcement of laws relating to underage sales.

Question reference: S1W-07899

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 10 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what financial support, expertise and encouragement it is providing to the Glasgow CrossRail project.

Question reference: S1O-02138

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 6 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what resources have been made available to local authorities to ensure that the necessary funds are available to strengthen bridges in order to comply with EU regulations for higher gross weight lorries.

Scottish Executive support for local authorities' capital expenditure on roads and transport is included within the single allocation under section 94 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 which covers all non-housing capital programmes. It is for local authorities to prioritise upgrading of bridges to meet the 40-tonne EC standard and allocate the necessary funding from the resources available to them.

Question reference: S1W-08181

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 5 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether engineers can fulfil public expectations in relation to the upkeep of the road network given current road maintenance levels and funding methods and, if so, why its assessment of the situation differs from that of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

The assessment published for the Institution of Civil Engineers relates to local roads in England, Scotland and Wales. Local roads are maintained by councils as local roads authorities. It is entirely a matter for each Scottish Council to decide the priority to be given to this work and allocate resources accordingly.

I have made it clear that the maintenance of the Scottish trunk road network and the reversal of past underfunding was a clear priority of the Scottish Executive. The condition of the trunk road network is being preserved as a result of the significant extra funds that have been allocated.

Question reference: S1W-08182

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sam Galbraith on 5 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will be possible for local authorities to implement the McCrone recommendations if it does not meet the costs centrally and, if so, why its assessment differs from that of CoSLA.

Question reference: S1W-07170

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 May 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 5 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive how much money Greater Glasgow Health Board transferred from capital to revenue budgets in each year from 1994-95 to 1999-2000 inclusive and what the mechanism was for carrying out such transfers.

The resources transferred from capital to revenue budgets in the Greater Glasgow Health Board area between 1994-95 and 1999-2000 are shown in the following table:

1994-95

£000

1995-96

£000

1996-97

£000

1997-98

£000

1998-99

£000

1999-2000

£000

Nil

1,684

6,478

3,287

3,659

6,423

Individual NHS Trusts are required to seek permission from The Scottish Executive to transfer resources from capital to revenue.

From 2000-01 onwards, all capital funds must be spent on capital items.

Question reference: S1W-07885

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Wendy Alexander on 5 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of children lived in households with an income below the poverty line as defined by the Child Poverty Action Group for each of the last five years for which figures are available, broken down by local authority area.

The information requested cannot be provided at local authority level.

Information currently available on household income is drawn from the Households Below Average Income dataset and the Family Resources Survey which do not have sufficient sample size for Scotland to produce the required level of detail.

The Scottish Household Survey will provide information on household income by local authority area after the first full sweep of the survey (i.e. after two years) - the results of which are not likely to be made available until summer 2001.

Work is also underway to investigate new methodologies and to consider boosting existing samples to give better coverage for Scotland.

At the Scotland level, the proportion of children in households with below 60% GB median income in 1997-98 was 30% (340,000 children). This represents a drop from a figure of 34% in 1996-97.

Question reference: S1W-07145

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 May 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jack McConnell on 3 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive how much each local authority is expected to raise in non-domestic rates in 2000-01.

Figures showing the amounts of non-domestic rate income collected by local authorities for 2000-01 are not yet available. The figures for 1998-99, the most recent available, are shown in the following table.

Council	NDR Collected	Council	NDR Collected
Aberdeen City	101,318,328	Highland	53,075,991
Aberdeenshire	49,466,288	Inverclyde*	16,455,511
Angus	19,568,920	Midlothian	12,994,938
Argyll & Bute	28,299,338	Moray	19,672,200
Clackmannanshire	10,495,047	North Ayrshire	36,854,012
Dumfries & Galloway	31,789,211	North Lanarkshire	68,164,545
Dundee City	42,071,071	Orkney	6,209,691
East Ayrshire	21,876,160	Perth & Kinross	32,924,976
East Dunbartonshire	14,797,539	Renfrewshire*	46,023,557
East Lothian	24,911,565	Scottish Borders	18,548,281
East Renfrewshire	10,126,348	Shetland	12,351,868
Edinburgh, City of	186,151,389	South Ayrshire	28,296,107
Eilean Siar	4,632,944	South Lanarkshire	69,496,242
Falkirk	44,466,106	Stirling	26,955,963
Fife	101,297,014	West Dunbartonshire*	22,396,416
Glasgow City	231,326,059	West Lothian	44,096,478

* Audited figures not yet available - figures based on most recent estimate of NDR collected by councils.

Question reference: S1W-07745

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 3 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to make upward-only clauses for rent reviews illegal and to allow rents and rates to be reduced in line with market trends where appropriate.

The Executive has no such plans. Scots commercial law favours a freedom of contract approach in which commercial tenants and landlords can, with professional advice, tailor a lease to suit their own circumstances; clauses, including upward-only clauses, can only be included in a lease if agreed by both parties. The present freedom of contract approach has worked satisfactorily for a long time and it would not be appropriate for the Executive to intervene.

Question reference: S1W-06676

Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 11 May 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 3 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-6113 by Susan Deacon on 8 May 2000, whether it can explain why NHSiS expenditure on the provision or replacement of equipment by Greater Glasgow Health Board fell, in real terms, from #13.556 million in 1994-95 to #3.547 million in 1998-99.