Chamber and committees

The Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals have a key role in determining appeals to Scottish ministers arising from decisions taken by other public bodies, mainly planning authorities.

In the present context, where an appeal is to be taken against a decision made by the Scottish ministers, it is proposed that any such appeal be heard by the courts.

The provisions within Section 18(3) and (4) allow Marine Scotland to collect information only for the purposes of allowing the effective consideration of an application and to make informed decisions when issuing a licence, attaching conditions to a licence or refusing a licence.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-30297 on 26 January 2010 All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-30262 on 26 January 2010. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The restrictions of section 72 will apply to any body which is a public authority with the function of determining an application as described in section (1) of that section.

We have received an application to amend the Scottish Farmed Salmon PGI from the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation. Once this application is finalised the Scottish Government will issue it for public consultation.

Under section 17A, Scottish Ministers may by regulations prescribe classes or descriptions of licensable marine activity which will be subject to pre-application consultation. This is a new provision introduced to the bill during stage 2 and as yet exact details of the marine activities which would fall within the scope of the provision have not been determined. There will be a full consultation process on any relevant regulations but it is likely that minor, small scale projects or repairs would fall outwith the scope of the provision.

Section 27 of the Marine (Scotland) Bill allows the marine licence and the Section 36 consent to be considered together. This will allow for a streamlined decision making process. If a project has received a section 36 Electricity Act consent it will still require the relevant marine licence for certain parts of the project to proceed. As such, it is only right that the applicant should have the right to appeal in the unlikely event that a marine licence is refused. In such cases appeal is likely to be to the sheriff court.

Information on the proportion of households who defaulted on energy bill payments in the last 12 months is not held centrally.

Officials from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland met with Commission officials in February 2009 to discuss proposals to revise the Cross Compliance payment reduction systems as a result of the 2008 audits in England and Wales.

The Commission made it clear at this meeting that they expected the majority of Cross Compliance breaches to result in a 3% payment reduction otherwise significant disallowance (EC fines) would apply. This approach was further confirmed and clarified in the Commission audit letters to Wales and later to Northern Ireland following their audit in spring 2009.

At our request the UK raised the issue of Cross Compliance penalties at the Council of Ministers on 16 December 2009 and we will press for meetings to be held with the new Commission to keep our concerns on the agenda.