Chamber and committees

The water authorities are conducting a consultation exercise on proposals to withdraw relief on water and sewerage charges from certain customers. The exercise follows my intervention last year to delay for one year the withdrawal of relief in a number of cases. As part of that intervention, I required any further proposals of this type to be the subject of consultation with all customers that might be affected. The current consultation exercise is in line with that requirement.

Under the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994, the water authorities are required to endeavour not to show any undue preference or discrimination in respect of particular groups of customers. It is against this background that the authorities are conducting the present consultation exercise. The Executive believes that where reliefs are to be withdrawn, withdrawal should be phased to ease the immediate impact and those customers affected by withdrawal should be given sufficient warning so that they can make plans to meet increased bills.

The Executive is currently considering whether it can improve on the assistance provided to many low income households through the link between water and sewerage charges and council tax bands. I expect to publish a consultation paper on this shortly.

Under section 51 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, education authorities have a duty to make such arrangements as they consider necessary for the provision of free transport, or for provision of other transport facilities as may be arranged, or for paying all or part of reasonable transport expenses for school pupils belonging to their area and attending designated schools. The details of any arrangements made are for each education authority to determine in the light of local circumstances. In general, they make such arrangements for pupils who live outwith the statutory walking distance, defined in section 42(4) of the 1980 Act as being two miles for any pupil under eight years of age and three miles for any other pupil.

Decisions on the size of quotas are based on scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES). The ICES advice proposes sustainable levels of fishing for the forthcoming year and takes into account the estimated level of discarding from the previous year for key commercial species.

It is not possible to provide the level of detail requested from the information held centrally. The table below gives figures for the number of persons with a charge proved in sheriff and district courts in North East Scotland in 1997 and 1998, and the number of these where the main offence involved was aggravated by having been committed while the offender was on bail. Corresponding information for 1999 is not yet available.

Persons with a charge proved, North East Scotland¹, 1997-98

SEJD Crime Category2	All persons		Persons with a bail aggravation3
	1997	1998	1997	1998
Housebreaking	495	466	89	72
Robbery	28	36	5	4
Drug offences	833	817	21	46
Other offences	13,871	14,246	526	549
Total	15,227	15,565	641	671

Notes:

1. Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, Peterhead and Stonehaven Sheriff Courts; Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray District Courts.

2. Main offence

3. The offence was aggravated by having been committed while the offender was the subject of a bail order.

The Executive is committed to reducing discards of all species. The new EC Technical Conservation Regulation, which came into force on 1 January this year, introduced new measures to reduce discarding. Furthermore, the Scottish Executive recently made regulations requiring the placement of square mesh panels in fishing nets as from 3 August and a reduction in net twine thickness applicable from March next year. These measures will reduce discards of juvenile haddock and whiting.

Levels of discards are estimated by fish species and sea area. These estimates are given in the Annual Report of the Advisory Committee on Fishery Management. The data below provides the estimated discard rates for the Scottish fleet for the main whitefish species by weight aggregated over the entire North Sea.

	1997	1998	1999
Cod	18.56%	22.98%	11.81%
Haddock	40.30%	37.58%	40.66%
Whiting	35.92%	35.03%	48.15%

My department has to rely on data provided by fishermen to supplement estimates provided by our scientists.

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 makes it an offence to release any fish not native to Great Britain into the wild without a licence. The Import of Live Fish (Scotland) Act 1978 also gives powers to Scottish Ministers to prohibit the import, keeping or release of fish that are not native to Scotland which might compete with, displace, prey on or harm the habitat of any freshwater fish, shellfish or salmon in Scotland. To date, only three Orders have been made under the 1978 Act. Whether further Orders should be made to prohibit other species which may be used as live bait will be considered under the "Protecting and Promoting Scotland's Freshwater Fish and Fisheries" review.

There are currently no government-sponsored studies into the impact of the introduction of non-native fish stocks. However, the Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory maintains a watching brief on the distribution of freshwater fish species.

The Scottish Executive has established a number of standing advisory groups on fisheries matters, including the Scottish Inshore Fisheries Advisory Group, the Tripartite Working Group and the Aquaculture Health Joint Working Group, and also sets up ad hoc groups from time to time to consider specific issues.

The Scottish Executive is represented on a wide range of UK and international advisory and policy making groups which consider issues of relevance to fisheries.