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-15061

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 2 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive whether its legal advice is that it would be possible for the water authorities to be exempted from the Competition Act 1998.

Question reference: S1W-15022

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 2 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how much National Lottery Charities Board funding has been allocated to each (a) parliamentary region and (b) parliamentary constituency, and what percentage of the total monies allocated by the Board in Scotland each of these figures represents.

Question reference: S1W-15027

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 2 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many applications for National Lottery Charities Board funding there have been from each (a) parliamentary region and (b) parliamentary constituency, specifying the percentage of successful applications in each case.

Question reference: S1W-15025

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 2 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many babies have been born with a drug addiction in each health board area in each of the last five years.

The information available is shown in the following table. Discharges Recording Drug Misuse. It shows cases in which the foetus and new born baby is affected by maternal use of drugs of addiction and there are neonatal withdrawal symptoms from maternal use of drugs of addiction.

Neonatal discharges¹ - Scotland:
By health board and local council area of residence; year ending 31 March 2001
	All Discharges				Discharges Recording Drug Misuse³

					Number				Rate per 1,000 Discharges
Area of Residence	1997	1998	1999^r	2000^p,4	1997	1998	1999^r	2000^p,4	1997	1998	1999^r	2000^p,4
Scotland	17 351	17 322	17 893	16 832	161	217	246	220	9.3	12.5	13.7	*
Health Board
Argyll and Clyde	2 303	1 304	1 128	1 143	9	11	22	32	3.9	8.4	19.5	28.0
Ayrshire and Arran	854	998	888	683	10	17	23	28	11.7	17.0	25.9	41.0
Borders	273	238	251	272	-	1	-	2	-	4.2	-	7.4
Dumfries &Galloway	274	315	285	291	2	3	5	7	7.3	9.5	17.5	24.1
Fife	570	527	532	498	6	6	10	15	10.5	11.4	18.8	30.1
Forth Valley	580	676	611	698	2	7	2	12	3.4	10.4	3.3	17.2
Grampian	3 825	3 952	3 841	3 939	24	60	42	63	6.3	15.2	10.9	16.0
Greater Glasgow	2 989	3 466	3 894	2 966	59	66	100	17⁴	19.7	19.0	25.7	*
Highland	552	595	555	603	3	4	5	6	5.4	6.7	9.0	10.0
Lanarkshire	1 441	1 390	1 584	1 314	4	2	4	6	2.8	1.4	2.5	4.6
Lothian	2 187	2 414	3 074	3 469	20	16	19	28	9.1	6.6	6.2	8.1
Tayside	1 210	1 106	894	639	21	24	13	3	17.4	21.7	14.5	4.7
Orkney	112	143	121	104	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Shetland	119	127	144	152	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	6.6
Western Isles	24	28	29	17	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Other²	38	43	62	44	1	-	1	-	26.3	-	16.1	-
1 - A baby may be admitted to and discharged from neonatal care more than once. Figures relate to the total number of discharges, not the number of individual babies
2 - Area of residence "not known" or outwith Scotland.
3 - Drug misuse is defined using the following International Classification of Disease (10th Revision) codes: P96.1 and P04.4
4 - Numbers are lower than expected due to under recording, particularly in Greater Glasgow, Western Isles and Shetland health board areas.
p - Provisional data.
* - Data withheld

Additional information is published in Drug Misuse Statistics Scotland 2000 (Chapter 6 - Drug Misuse in Pregnancy), a copy of which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib number 10066).The publication can also be accessed at the following web address:http://www.drugmisuse.isdscotland.org/publications/000bull/Chapter6.pdf

Question reference: S1W-15024

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 1 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what progress is being made in controlling and eliminating infectious salmon anaemia and whether any further policy measures are being formulated in this connection.

All of the 11 confirmed farms and most of the 24 suspect farms have been restocked following clearance, disinfection and fallowing. There have been no confirmed cases since May 1998 and no suspect cases since November 1999.If further confirmed cases arise, the changes we have secured to EC and domestic legislation will enable us to vary the rate at which farms are cleared of fish according to the level of disease present and the threat to other farms. Also, at the request of the Commission, we have drafted proposals for the statutory diagnosis of ISA which includes a new provision for lifting suspicion from farms.

Question reference: S1W-15026

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Allan Wilson on 1 May 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many applications for Millennium Commission funding there have been from each (a) parliamentary region and (b) parliamentary constituency, specifying the percentage of successful applications in each case.

Question reference: S1W-15044

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 12 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 30 April 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many and what percentage of cases involving dealing in class A drugs did not result in a custodial sentence in each of the last three years, broken down by (a) parliamentary region and (b) court.

Figures on the number of non-custodial convictions for dealing in Class A drugs cannot, from the information held centrally, be separately identified within the total number of convictions where the main offence was the supply or possession with intent to supply drugs. The available information relates to convictions by court and is given in the table.

Persons with a charge proved for supply of drugs (main offence), 1997-99

	Total number of persons with a charge proved			Persons receiving a non-custodial sentence (number)			Persons receiving a non-custodial sentence (% of total)
Court type	1997	1998	1999	1997	1998	1999	1997	1998	1999
Sheriff court
Aberdeen	74	96	83	58	63	58	78	66	70
Airdrie	34	33	33	20	21	13	59	64	39
Alloa	14	18	25	9	3	12	64	17	48
Arbroath	10	5	9	4	2	6	40	40	67
Ayr	16	21	27	8	11	12	50	52	44
Banff	2	3	2	1	1	2	50	33	100
Campbeltown	2	2	1	-	2	1	-	100	100
Cupar	10	8	9	3	8	8	30	100	89
Dingwall	4	6	6	2	2	1	50	33	17
Dornoch	-	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Dumbarton	24	33	28	13	16	19	54	48	68
Dumfries	43	24	20	23	13	12	53	54	60
Dundee	33	27	21	16	19	15	48	70	71
Dunfermline	26	32	26	15	19	17	58	59	65
Dunoon	3	3	5	1	3	1	33	100	20
Duns	2	2	1	1	2	1	50	100	100
Edinburgh	83	147	112	55	97	62	66	66	55
Elgin	20	11	12	11	9	5	55	82	42
Falkirk	24	29	28	13	22	19	54	76	68
Forfar	12	13	6	4	10	5	33	77	83
Fort William	6	6	5	2	-	2	33	-	40
Glasgow	370	326	357	206	166	209	56	51	59
Greenock	36	45	39	6	15	21	17	33	54
Haddington	4	6	6	2	2	2	50	33	33
Hamilton	56	65	46	30	36	38	54	55	83
Inverness	10	30	10	6	23	7	60	77	70
Jedburgh	15	6	4	7	4	-	47	67	-
Kilmarnock	40	44	38	16	23	16	40	52	42
Kirkcaldy	37	31	31	23	19	24	62	61	77
Kirkcudbright	7	3	3	2	2	1	29	67	33
Kirkwall	-	-	5	-	-	2	-	-	40
Lanark	4	7	8	3	7	6	75	100	75
Lerwick	-	1	2	-	1	2	-	100	100
Linlithgow	32	27	29	21	18	26	66	67	90
Lochmaddy	-	-	-
Oban	4	4	4	-	2	2	-	50	50
Paisley	48	57	31	21	20	15	44	35	48
Peebles	-	1	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
Perth	30	51	49	22	39	37	73	76	76
Peterhead	22	14	8	8	8	4	36	57	50
Portree	4	4	1	1	4	-	25	100	-
Rothesay	2	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Selkirk	3	8	3	2	6	3	67	75	100
Stirling	20	13	16	11	6	9	55	46	56
Stonehaven	4	4	3	4	3	1	100	75	33
Stornoway	6	3	5	3	2	4	50	67	80
Stranraer	6	9	5	2	4	2	33	44	40
Tain	2	2	4	1	1	4	50	50	100
Wick	1	2	2	1	2	2	100	100	100
Total Sheriff Court	1,205	1,286	1,169	657	736	708	55	57	61
High court	285	242	297	28	33	41	10	14	14
Other court type	-	1	-	-	1	-	100	-	-
Total	1,490	1,529	1,466	685	770	749	46	50	51

Question reference: S1W-14917

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 26 April 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive what percentage of completed questionnaires returned to the water authorities in connection with the proposed withdrawal of relief for water and sewerage charges for the voluntary sector indicated support for the complete withdrawal of relief.

Question reference: S1W-14915

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Ross Finnie on 26 April 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive how many representations have been received in support of the policy of removing water rates reliefs for the voluntary sector, and how many against.

Question reference: S1W-14830

Asked by: Richard Lochhead, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 April 2001
Current Status: Answered by Rhona Brankin on 26 April 2001

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the Deputy Minister for Rural Development or any other Minister instructed civil servants to solicit correspondence from fishing industry organisations in relation to the recently announced package of assistance for the industry and, if so, whether it will give details of which civil servants were instructed, the instructions issued and the subsequent results, and its reasons for its actions in this matter.