Chamber and committees

The Ministerial Committee on Rural Development has met eight times since its first meeting in September 1999. The next meeting is scheduled for 30 January 2001. I announced the formation of the committee to the Parliament on 22 June 1999 and reported progress during the parliamentary launch of Rural Scotland: a New Approach on 25 May 2000. My appearances before the Rural Affairs Committee have provided further opportunities to discuss some of the key rural issues which have been priorities for the committee.

The Spending Review figures were announced in resource terms. This means that Scottish Assigned Budget now scores the full capital expenditure made by the water authorities rather than just the loans and grants, otherwise known as the External Finance Limit, made to them.

My predecessor announced on the 22 September the breakdown of the increases to the environment budget, which shows additional provision for the water industry. I will be making announcements about the allocation to each water authority in due course.

Data about injury road accidents are collected by the police and reported to the Scottish Executive using the STATS 19 statistical report form. Information is collated by local authority area and by police force area but not by parliamentary region.

The table below gives the numbers of road accident fatalities for the years 1995 to 1999. Figures for 2000 are not yet available centrally. The information is broken down by police force area.

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Northern	33	32	48	43	36
Grampian	61	40	47	58	35
Tayside	48	29	28	28	40
Fife	17	23	24	24	15
Lothian & Borders	61	64	63	73	52
Central	14	14	22	26	10
Strathclyde	154	128	117	116	109
Dumfries & Galloway	21	27	28	17	13
Scotland	409	357	377	385	310

Scottish Screen aims to promote film and television production across Scotland wherever it will have the greatest economic and cultural effect. While the film and television industry in Scotland is concentrated in Glasgow, Scottish Screen estimates that about 33% of its non-fixed expenditure over the past three years has been outside Glasgow.

On 3 August 2000, the Food Standards Agency, Scotland assumed responsibility for the algal toxin monitoring and sampling programme from the Scottish Executive. All aspects of the programme are continuously being reviewed, and consideration of a proposed new tiered approach to the sampling regime is well progressed. However, in the meantime the agency is continuing to follow existing procedures. The FSAS welcomes any suggestions that could help improve communication of information in respect of the monitoring programme, or its effectiveness.

The number of fishermen is shown in table 2 of the publication Sea Fisheries Scotland 1999 which is available in SPICe. The number employed in the processing of fish, including farmed fish, was:

1997	8,800
1998	8,300
1999	8,600

Estimates of jobs dependent on fishing are not made routinely.

The table below shows combined government and European funding under FIFG. Figures for the years 1997-98 to 2000-01 are outturn or estimated outturn expenditure. Figures for 2001-02 onwards reflect expenditure provision for those years.

	£ million
1997-98	3.07
1998-99	4.81
1999-2000	6.52
2000-01	5.37
2001-02	8.3
2002-03	10.2
2003-04	10.7

The annual June Agricultural Census collects information on occupiers rather than farmers. The information, including figures for minor holdings, for the years 1997 to 2000 are given in the table below

	1997	1998	1999	2000
Full-time occupiers	12,590	12,629	12,472	11,868
Part-time occupiers	15,428	15,972	16,285	16,966
All Occupiers	28,018	28,601	28,757	28,834

The significant components of support for farmers are CAP Market Support, Less Favoured Areas Support, Agri-environment and Farm Woodlands Grants. The aggregate figures for these measures are shown in the table below.£ million

1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Actual	Actual	Provisional Outturn	Estimated Outturn	Plan	Plan	Plan
393	460	415	462	465	460	457

Some 70-80% of this total support is in the form of CAP Market Support payments, for which planned provision is classed as Annually Managed Expenditure (AME). The actual level of payments to the industry under CAP Market Support schemes will depend on a range of factors including EU Commission decisions on Euro payment rates, the prevailing Sterling/Euro exchange rate and demand under the schemes

The Scottish Executive does not maintain profitability series on the Scottish pig industry. However, I have commissioned a study into the current profitability of this sector, the results of which will be available in late summer 2001. The market price data shown below gives an indication of how profitability is likely to have fluctuated over recent years.The EU Pigs Regime does not make provision for direct support to be given to pig producers. However, recognising the particular difficulties which our pig farmers have had to contend with recently, a State Aid application to support this sector is at an advanced stage of processing by the European Commission.AVERAGE GB PIG PRICE (pence per kg deadweight)

1996	1997	1998	1999	2000 (to end October)
138.43	112.11	85.15	79.77	94.44

There are currently 842 pig Units in Scotland. The data shown below gives details covering the period 1997-99. The number of Units represents those holdings on which pigs are held for breeding and finishing purposes and includes holdings on which other livestock may be kept.

Year	Number of Units
1997	982
1998	1,017
1999	940

This information is not held centrally.