Chamber and committees

We welcome the publication of the NAO report and recognition of the good work that customs are doing to tighten controls and improve the UK's protection from illegal imports of animal products from countries outside the EU.

We, in association with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, the Welsh Assembly, and customs are already taking forward many of the recommendations included within the report, particularly with regard to those aimed at heightening public awareness.

Customs will be exploring the other recommendations on enforcement issues.

We will continue to work closely with customs to reduce the risk of disease entering the UK.

The Scottish Executive has not incurred any programme costs in respect of the nuclear industry in the last five years. As regards running costs, a small team of staff in Environment and Rural Affairs Department deal with policy on radioactive waste matters in Scotland generally. Nuclear power also forms a small part of the work of the energy policy team in Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department.

The ScottishExecutive has a broad range of energy related initiatives which assist allparts of Scotland, including Aberdeen. This includes £150 million over 10 years to fundITI Energy in Aberdeen which will develop and commercialise new energy andenergy related technologies. We also contributed to the costs of a feasibilitystudy into an Energy Futures Centre in Aberdeen.

The information requested isnot collected centrally.

The report published by the Office of Fair Trading on 22 March is not yet the final advice to ministers. The OFT is seeking further hard evidence from suppliers about breaches of the Supermarket Code of Practice. We shall take careful stock of the final report which OFT makes to Ministers and we shall have an input into the response. When I meet the major retailers I shall continue to emphasise how seriously the Executive views the importance of maintaining a sustainable food chain with healthy trading relationships between suppliers and retailers.

The information requested isprovided in the table.

Number of Patients Seen and Treated*at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital, by NHS Board of Residence in 2003-04 and 2004-05^P

NHS Board	2003-04	2004-05P
Argyll and Clyde	1,022	1,553
Ayrshire and Arran	2,576	1,045
Borders	33	63
Dumfries and Galloway	400	409
Fife	60	43
Forth Valley	1,410	2,982
Highland	-	1
Grampian	75	60
Greater Glasgow	4,318	7,347
Lanarkshire	1,006	1,260
Lothian	458	324
Shetland	5	-
Tayside	63	58
Western Isles	-	2
Total	11,426	15,147

Source: Golden Jubilee National Hospital .

^PProvisional.

Note: *Relates to individualpatients seen, and not to the number of procedures undertaken. The Golden JubileeHospital’s target for 2004-05 was to undertake 18,300 procedures. Early indicationsfrom the hospital are that they undertook around 18,500 procedures during 2004-05.

The average cost of a school meal in Scottish primary and secondary schools, as well as a breakdown of costs by local authority, is available in the annual school meals census. The latest census (June 22, 2004) is available on the Scottish Executive’s website at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00347-00.asp.

The safety of a reservoir is a matter for the reservoir undertaker (generally the owner of the reservoir). Local authorities, as enforcement authorities for reservoir safety in Scotland, have a duty under the Reservoirs Act 1975 to maintain a public register of all large raised reservoirs in their area and to submit biennial reports to the Scottish Executive on any steps taken to ensure that reservoir owners observe and comply with the requirements of the act. The biennial reports received by the Executive indicate that these arrangements are working satisfactorily.

The flood category of reservoirs subject to the Reservoirs Act 1975 is determined by specialist engineers using guidance published by the Institution of Civil Engineers, Floods and Reservoir Safety, 3rd edition 1996. The degree of resilience required by a dam or its spillway capacity is determined by the potential hazard to life and property downstream. Flood risk category is not required to be stated on the public register of large raised reservoirs maintained by the enforcement authorities under the act – local authorities in Scotland - though this information will be known by the reservoir undertaker.

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) commissioned research on the climate change impacts on the safety of British reservoirs, the final report on which is available on the Defra website at http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/water/rs/pdf/climate_change_reservoirs.pdf.