Chamber and committees

I refer MrMcArthur to my letter dated 4 October 2007.

There have beenno meetings between Scottish ministers and Scottish Natural Heritage since 4May 2007 regarding the implications for single farm payments of SNH management agreements. SNH have had anumber of conversations with my officials about this difficult issue, and haverecently written to them about it. I will take advice on this shortly with aview to reaching a final conclusion.

The enterprisenetworks have many linkages with VisitScotland. These include close working on thepart of their tourism industry teams, together with a range of local contacts atlocal enterprise company (LEC) level. These linkages should be strengthened followingreform of the enterprise networks, including through the formation of a StrategicForum at which ministers intend to engage with and give direction to the chairsand chief executives of Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and VisitScotland. Following our reform and removalof LEC structures, staff in the local offices of Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise will continue to have a rangeof contacts with VisitScotland colleagues.

The Scottish Governmenthas engaged consultants to carry out a study of Road Equivalent Tariff (RET). Oneof the consultants’ first tasks will be to develop proposals on the implementationof a pilot RET project in the Western Isles, as promised in our manifesto. As indicatedin the reply to question S3W-3672 answered on 13 September 2007, the consultantshave been asked to liaise with a range of stakeholders, including local authoritiesand regional transport partnerships, as they carry out their work. When appropriate,the Scottish Government will be involved in these discussions. It is anticipatedthat the consultants will be contacting these stakeholders shortly with the intentionof a first meeting during October.

I refer themember to the answer to question S3W-4458 on 1 October 2007. Allanswers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’swebsite, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I refer themember to the answer to question S3W-4458 on 1 October 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can befound at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The Government’sSkills Strategy does identify that the demand for scientists in the futurelooks positive and the total employment for science occupations is projected togrow at a faster rate to 2014 than that expected for non-science occupations.

Our approach totaking this forward will be set out in our Science Strategy. For furtherdetails, I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-4458 on 1 October 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can befound at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Scotland has a successful tourism industry withthe potential to grow significantly, contributing to our target of deliveringstrong and sustainable growth.

The ScottishGovernment and our agencies are committed to working with the tourism industryto achieve our shared ambition to increase Scotland’s tourism revenues by 50% in the decade to 2015. The enterprisenetworks have identified tourism as one of Scotland’s priority sectors. They support tourism businesses in a variety ofways, including assisting in product development, investment in infrastructure,building partnership and networking opportunities and using skills developmentto improve management, leadership and customer service. These are all aimed athelping the tourism sector to grow by increasing capacity and become moreefficient and effective.

The reforms tothe enterprise networks and VisitScotland which we announced on 26 September 2007are designed to simplify and strengthen the ways in which they will work withtourism businesses identified as having the potential to contribute to ourtourism growth ambition.

As we set out in ourProgramme for Government Principles and Priorities document, Scotland needs a healthy science and research base, as our futureeconomy and society will be increasingly dependent on science and technology andscience contributes to all of our wider objectives. We will therefore be givingpriority to developing our plans for science and innovation strategy and developinga vision for supporting science to benefit the economy, our people and our qualityof life. We published on the Scottish Government website in August a report on aconsultation exercise on Scotland’s science and innovation strategy conducted betweenOctober 2006 and January 2007. We now intend to build on that work to develop areplacement for the science strategy published in 2001. Plans for this work, includingproposals on scope, timing and stakeholder engagement, are currently being drawnup for ministers to consider and no target date has yet been set for publication.However, given the degree of preparatory work necessary, including further consultationwith stakeholders, the wide ranging nature of science strategy and the interactionwith other strategic work, we would expect this to be produced during 2008. In additionto this overall strategy, we are currently consulting on a revised strategy forhealth research funded through the Chief Scientist Office of the Health Directorates,with the aim of publishing a new strategy in 2008 and we have also recently initiateda scoping exercise in the area of rural, environmental and marine policy that willhelp us to publish a framework for the next research strategy in this area by thesummer of 2008. The Chief Scientific Adviser in the Scottish Government, ProfessorAnne Glover, is ensuring we adopt a co-ordinated approach to science policy andstrategy across the Scottish Government.

Our approach to supportingscience will be set out in our overall strategy and this will need to address arange of issues. These will include maintaining an internationally competitive sciencebase and ensuring that funding for science is aligned and  co-ordinated; steppingup our international connections on science to attract more large scale investment,and ensuring that discoveries and innovations from our science base are harnessedeffectively; ensuring that our education system produces a good flow of scientistsand those with science skills, to meet the needs of all sectors of our economy;promoting and engaging public interest in science and in science careers, and ensuringthat science is used effectively by Government to support all aspects policy development.

In the meantime, weshall continue to support science through a wide range of programmes, includingfunding of research and its exploitation in universities, research institutes, theNHS, and business – planned public investment in which will amount to over £450million in 2007-08. Science education will benefit from our science and societyprogramme and science is being considered early in the on-going review of curriculummaterials.

The London 2012Olympic and Paralympic Games will provide Scotland with an additional opportunity to showcase its tourism product to aglobal market. VisitScotland is represented on the Scottish steering groupwhich has been set up to ensure that Scotland gets maximum benefit from the games.