Chamber and committees

The Scottish Executive Languages Fund can be used to fund overseas travel for the purpose of learninga language. In addition, the Scottish Executive provides the British Council Scotland with £310,000 annually,to manage a variety of international exchange and linking opportunities for pupilsand students, such as the Comenius Language Projects and the Lingua Programme, whichdeal specifically with language learning and provide various opportunities for Scottishpupils to travel in Europe.

The number of formal committee meetings held outside the parliamentary complex by each committee in each year since 1999 is shown in the table. The table does not include fact finding trips or committee events, details of which for the period 1999 to 2002 can be found in the source sheets published on the Parliament’s website at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S1/parl_bus/annreps.html, and in the annualreports by committees published by the Parliament.

 

Committee Meetings Outside Edinburgh since 1999

Committee	1999-2000	2000-01	2001–02	2002–03
Audit	0	2	0	0
Education, Culture and Sport	0	3	2	2
Enterprise and Lifelong Learning	1	1	1	2
Equal Opps	0	0	0	1
European	1	0	0	0
Finance	0	1	2	2
Health and Community Care	0	0	1	2
Justice and Home Affairs	1	2	n/a	n/a
Justice 1	n/a	0	0	1
Justice 2	n/a	0	2	0
Local Government	2	1	0	2
Procedures	0	0	0	0
Public Petitions	1	1	0	0
Robin Rigg Offshore Wind	n/a	n/a	n/a	2
Farm (navigation and Fishing) (Scotland) Bill Committee	0	0	0	0
Rural Affairs (until 7 Jan 2001)	0	1	n/a	n/a
Rural Development (from 8 Jan 2001)	n/a		3	4
Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector (until 7 January 2001)	2	0	n/a	n/a
Social Justice (from 8 January 2001)	n/a	0	0	0
Standards	0	0	0	0
Subordinate Legislation	0	0	0	0
Transport and the Environment	0	0	0	0

 

We made provision for expenditureof up to £10 million on Transitional Support Grant; and up to £40 million on the2003 decommissioning scheme. In the event, expenditure on decommissioning is expectedto be just over £30.5 million and, that on Transitional Support Grant just under£9.2 million.

The latest figure we have regardingthe amount of hardship relief granted by local authorities to businesses affectedby the reduction in whitefish catches is £198,920 (as at 8 January 2004). Upto date information will be available once local authorities supply their mid-yearestimates during October 2004.

The Scottish Executive is in regular contact with Her Majesty’s Government about a wide rangeof issues, including the progress of the Intergovernmental Conference on the draftConstitution for Europe.

As President of REGLEG, the FirstMinister has raised the profile of the demands of the legislative regions for greaterinvolvement in European decision-making in a number of fora. He addressed the Chamberof the Regions of the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authoritiesof Europe on 23 March. He also repeated REGLEG’s demands to Romano Prodi, Presidentof the European Commission, at the inaugural meeting on 10 May of the “SystematicDialogue” organised by the Commission. Under the Scottish Presidency, REGLEG continuesto press for the inclusion of the references to the role of the regions and to subsidiarityin the draft Constitution currently under consideration by the IntergovernmentalConference.

In support of Scotland’s REGLEGPresidency, the Scottish Executive EU Office recently held a “sub rosa” conference involving senior officialsand academics from across Europe to consider how the subsidiarity proposals in the draftTreaty could be made to work effectively. The report of the conference is availableon the Executive’s website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/about/UNASS/UNASS/00015181/Home.aspx.

The Scottish Presidency is alsodeveloping REGLEG as a network for exchange of best practice; in this frameworkthe Executive is hosting a European conference on Policing Youth Justice on 5to 6 July.

The First Minister will hostthe 5th Annual Conference of the Presidents of the Regions with Legislative Powerson 29-30 November.

The Executive has recently publisheda consultation paper and draft legislation regarding its proposals to merge the Scottish Further Education Funding Council and the Scottish Higher Education FundingCouncil. Beyond this merger of the fundingbodies, there are no plans to restructure the further and higher education sectors.

Copiesof the consultation paper are available on the Scottish Executive internet sitewww.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/education/cltes-00.asp.Copies have also been placed in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. numbers:32496 – Consultation Paper and 32497 – Draft Bill).

The closing date for the consultationis 15 July 2004, and depending on responses received, our intention isto lay the legislation before Parliament in late summer/early autumn.

The Scottish Executive was consulted by Her Majesty’s Government on its priorities for the “FocalPoints” meeting held on 4 May 2004. Throughout the Intergovernmental Conference, the Executivehas had an input to the UK Government’s consideration of its negotiating lines andit contributed to the Government White Paper on this topic. Scottish ministers willnot attend the General Affairs and External Relations Councils of 17 to 18 and 14to 15 June.

The following 49 countries have consular representations in Scotland.

Australia

Austria

Bangladesh

Belgium

Brazil

Bulgaria

Chile

China

Cyprus

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Gambia

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Iceland

India

Ireland

Italy

Ivory Coast

Japan

Jordan

Kyrgyzstan

Libya

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Malta

Malawi

Mexico

Monaco

Mongolia

Netherlands

Norway

Pakistan

Philippines

Poland

Russian Federation

Spain

Rwanda

Sweden

Switzerland

Thailand

Tunisia

Turkey

Ukraine

United States of America

 

The Executive also works with a number of other overseas representatives, including London Embassies and High Commissions.

The purpose of the research activitycommissioned by the Executive is set out in my answer to S2W-5795 on 9 February 2004.Around £310,000 has so far been committed to this research. This work has been carriedout by four agencies: Union Advertising, Barkers Advertising, TNS System 3 and CorporateEdge. Charges made by individual companies are not published by the Executive asthey may be commercially sensitive.

Routine breast screening is undertakenon an invitation basis. There is a national computerised call-recall system in placewhich ensures that eligible women, who are registered with a general practitionerand are in the age range 50 to 64 years are invited for breast screening every threeyears. The upper age range for routine invitation is being extended to 70 yearson a phased basis across Scotland from spring 2003.

The NHS Quality Improvement Scotlandnational overview report on breast screening which was published in November 2003provides information about the Breast Screening Programme’s performance againstthe breast screening standards and covers matters related to every element, includingwaiting times where appropriate, of the screening process. A copy of the reportis available in the Parliament Reference Centre (Bib. number 30088).