Chamber and committees

In response to concerns raised about the operation of certain provisions relating to Sex Offenders, the Parliament has given its approval to the UK Parliament amending the Police Reform Bill to the Sex Offenders Order system, as provided under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The amendments are intended to introduce greater flexibility in the application procedures and to enable the mutual recognition of Sex Offenders Orders throughout the UK.

Information on hospital discharges relates to episodes of in-patient or day case care, rather than individual patients. The same patient may account for several hospital admissions during the course of a year (or across years).The recording of alcohol/drug misuse may vary from hospital to hospital. Where suspected, but unconfirmed, it may not be recorded by the hospital.The number of discharges for children aged under 16 with an alcohol related or drug misuse diagnosis from acute hospitals, mental illness hospitals and psychiatric units is presented for financial years 1996-97 to 2000-01. Provisional information for 2001-02 is also shown.1996-97 to 2001-02 Scottish Hospital¹ Discharges^1,2,3 For Children Aged Under 16 With Any Mention of Alcohol Related Conditions and Drug Misuse by Area of Residence

Area of Residence	Diagnosis5Discharge Period
	Alcohol Related Conditions1
	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02
Total	847	863	754	836	841	711
Argyll and Clyde	62	64	60	86	84	53
Ayrshire and Arran	117	109	99	99	84	93
Borders	20	20	24	23	24	28
Dumfries and Galloway	21	33	31	26	29	18
Fife	49	40	42	49	47	41
Forth Valley	33	21	35	34	35	26
Grampian	116	152	110	119	125	107
Greater Glasgow	133	125	110	115	116	104
Highland	43	52	50	45	61	55
Lanarkshire	85	51	59	80	55	44
Lothian	83	102	56	73	67	48
Orkney	1	6	5	6	8	8
Shetland	7	7	8	6	5	4
Tayside	64	68	53	69	80	63
Western Isles	8	5	7	2	15	14
Scotland	842	855	749	832	835	706
Other/Not Known	5	8	5	4	6	5

Area of Residence	DiagnosisDischarge Period
	Drug Misuse1
	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02
Total	78	85	70	49	58	73
Argyll & Clyde	6	3	3	6	10	9
Ayrshire & Arran	16	29	14	10	8	21
Borders	1	2	5	4	0	2
Dumfries & Galloway	3	2	3	1	3	0
Fife	9	7	13	0	3	5
Forth Valley	3	2	2	2	1	2
Grampian	12	9	9	7	3	4
Greater Glasgow	16	13	7	6	9	15
Highland	1	1	0	2	2	1
Lanarkshire	4	2	4	4	8	3
Lothian	3	10	9	5	7	8
Orkney	0	0	0	0	0	0
Shetland	1	0	0	0	0	0
Tayside	3	5	1	2	3	3
Western Isles	0	0	0	0	0	0
Scotland	78	85	70	49	57	73
Other/Not Known	0	0	0	0	1	0

Notes:Source: SMR01 & SMR04 (valid records only).1. Includes acute hospitals, mental illness hospitals and psychiatric units (excludes maternity hospitals).2. Transfer cases have been included for acute hospitals.3. Includes direct transfers from other psychiatric and those whose status on admission is 'not known' for mental illness hospitals & psychiatric units.4. Information on hospital discharges relates to episodes of in-patient or day case care rather than individual patients.The same patient may account for several hospital admissions during the course of a year (or across years) and will be counted each time in the table.5. Discharges where an alcohol related diagnosis is recorded as either primary or secondary reason for admission to hospital.6. Alcohol related conditions are defined by using the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases 10^th Revision (ICD10).Alcohol Related Conditions: F10, R780, Y90, Y91, Z637, Z811, Z864, Z714, Z502, T506, Y573, T510, T519, X45, X65, Y15, O354, Q860, P043, Z721, Z133, G621, G721, K860, I426, K70, K292, G312, E52.7. Drug Misuse is defined by using the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases 10^th Revision (ICD10).Drug Misuse: F11, F12, F13, F14, F15, F16, F18, F19.

No civil service posts in the Scottish Executive are funded by charities at the current time. The Scottish Executive is currently conducting an exercise to recruit a project officer to provide guidance and environmental information to farm conservation advisers. This is to take forward a project of joint interest to the Scottish Executive, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (a charity), and will be jointly funded by each of these organisations.

Civil service posts are not normally funded from external sources. Any proposal for an externally funded post would be determined by the circumstances of the individual case. Any such appointment to the civil service would operate within the framework of conduct, propriety and impartiality provided by the Civil Service Management Code and the Civil Service Code. This applies to all civil servants regardless of the funding arrangements governing their post.

The Communications Bill is being introduced to provide a new regulatory framework for broadcasting and telecommunications in the UK. It is not designed to have any particular effect on the culture and identity of Scotland, and no such analysis has been carried out.

The detailed management arrangements in the UK for deep water species remain to be decided following the finalisation of technical detail of the management regime at EC level. However, we do not envisage any specific plans to deal with any effort displacement from deep-water vessels. Demersal fisheries are generally managed through Total Allowable Catches and quota controls.

Scientific advice issued by International Council for the Exploration for the Sea in 2000 and revised in early June of this year indicated that many deep-water species were at risk of depletion and made a strong case for substantial reductions in fishing effort. The advice received is expressed in terms of reductions in overall fishing mortality and is not specific to Scottish fishing vessels. UK scientists concurred with this advice, emphasising the importance of early regulation to protect stocks. In our view the regime now adopted by the Council of Ministers is not in accordance with the scientific advice.

Only the Commission and Presidency have the right to table proposals for consideration by the Council of Ministers.The UK offered comments on the draft proposals throughout the negotiating process which has extended over many months. These comments took full account of the Executive's views on the management arrangements for deep water species formulated on the basis of regular consultation with the Scottish fishing industry, and included pressing for the introduction of effort controls in preference to Total Allowable Catches, as a more appropriate management regime for the stocks.

The management regime agreed for deep water species is set out, in detail, in Council Document SN 2746/02 (PECHE) which has been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 22207).It introduces a system of Total Allowable Catches (TACs) and quotas for certain species (black scabbardfish, blue ling, greater silver smelt, ling, orange roughy, red seabream, roundnose grenadier and tusk) in certain areas. It also introduces a licensing scheme for vessels landing further types of deep water species. However, not all the species covered by the TACs and quotas regulation are also covered by the licensing regulation (for example, ling and tusk are not included). Vessels which retain, tranship or land 100kg or more of the designated species in any one sea trip must hold a license, fulfil reporting requirements and land at designated ports.The details of how quota and licences will be allocated within the UK remain to be discussed and decided once the remaining technical details have been finalised by the Council Management Committee.The EC management regime will be reviewed in 2005. Levels of TAC (set initially for two years) may be reviewed annually in the light of new scientific advice.

I refer the member to the answer given to question S1W-26928.