- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 21 July 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 10 August 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what action is planned to protect farmers from any long-term harm to their crops from GM pollution.
Answer
It is a priority of the Scottish Executive to ensure that genetically modified crops and foods do not endanger human health or the environment. Before GM crops and foods can be approved for marketing or wider commercial use they must be rigorously assessed for safety.
This is an issue with an international dimension and the rigorous regulatory regime which we have in place at European level is designed to protect human health and the environment while simultaneously providing a strategic framework for the development of GM technology. This technology could bring significant benefits; not least in the field of medical biotechnology, where Scottish science is in a leading position. However, the technology will only be given the opportunity to demonstrate its potential within the security which the science-based regulatory regime provides for us.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Rhona Brankin on 26 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive how much of the Historic Scotland grant of #3.6 million for the Merchant City in Glasgow will be spent on the Saltmarket area.
Answer
Historic Scotland has not awarded a grant of £3.6 million for the Merchant City in Glasgow. The Heritage Lottery Fund earlier this year announced an award of £1.6 million, under the Fund's Townscape Heritage Initiative, for a pilot project to assist the upgrading and improvement of buildings within the historic centre of Glasgow. It is for Glasgow City Council and Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, being formal partners with the Fund and providing a matching contribution, to determine the content of the five-year programme of work. Historic Scotland may be approached for top-up funding for buildings which meet the criteria for an award under the agency's Historic Buildings Repair Grants Scheme.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 25 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what is the estimated number of young people who smoke in (a) Scotland, (b) Glasgow and (c) Glasgow Kelvin.
Answer
Current estimates would suggest that about 12% of under 16's in Scotland are regular smokers with a further 9% occasional smokers (source: Office for National Statistics, "Smoking, drinking and drug use among young teenagers in 1998", Volume 2: Scotland).
No information is available on Glasgow Kelvin.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 25 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have contracted lung cancer through smoking in the last year for which figures are available in (a) Scotland, (b) Glasgow and (c) Glasgow Kelvin.
Answer
The exact number of people contracting cancer as a direct result of smoking is unknown. The numbers of lung cancer cases diagnosed during 1996 and 1997 in the areas of interest are as follows:
| Year of diagnosis |
| 1996 | 1997* |
Scotland | 4,855 | 4,519 |
Greater Glasgow Health Board | 1,144 | 1,006 |
Glasgow Kelvin Parliamentary constituency | 75 | 71 |
* Data for 1997 is provisional.
It is expected that 80-90% of these cancers will have been caused by smoking.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 20 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what action has been taken following the White Paper on Tobacco.
Answer
The Scottish Executive is committed to reducing the levels of smoking by people in Scotland. The White Paper Smoking Kills outlines a comprehensive range of measures which we are now taking forward. These include health education and promotion activity; improvement on enforcement measures relating to underage sales; a Voluntary Charter on Smoking in Public Places; allocation of funding to health boards to spend on smoking cessation services and nicotine replacement therapy, and legislation to ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 19 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what the annual cost is to Greater Glasgow Health Board of smoking related illnesses.
Answer
The information is not held centrally. The precise cost of smoking related disease is difficult to ascertain, since cost data collected centrally from the National Health Service in Scotland cannot be attributed to individual disease. However, a report on hospital care for smoking related diseases in Greater Glasgow Health Board in 1992 estimated the cost of treatment at £14.4 million. Adjusted for inflation this equates to some £18 million in today's prices. This does not take into account costs associated with community nursing services, prescribing drugs in the community and GP services. (ASH Scotland/HEBS: The Smoking Epidemic: Counting the Cost in Scotland.)
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 May 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 17 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether the financial burden of breast cancer prescription charges can be relieved for those patients taking Tamoxifen on a long-term basis who do not qualify for income support, as is the case for those with diabetes.
Answer
The prescription charge medical exemption arrangements were reviewed by the UK Government in 1997. The decision taken was that the conditions which currently qualify for exemption would remain unchanged for the remainder of the current UK Parliament. The Scottish Executive has no plans to change this position.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 29 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Henry McLeish on 13 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether any new social inclusion funding initiatives will be put in place following the conclusion of the New Futures Fund initiative.
Answer
We have begun to consider options for the future of the New Futures Fund once the current programme ends in March 2002 but it is too early to say what the outcome will be.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 01 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 13 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-4576 by Susan Deacon on 26 April 2000, whether it will consider making representations to Her Majesty's Government in respect of a transfer of funds paid to the Department of Health by the Irish Government for ECMO treatment carried out by the NHS in Scotland to Scotland.
Answer
No. A once and for all transfer of funds was made to the health budget for Scotland by the Department of Health in 1989 to meet the costs of treatment carried out in Scotland under the reciprocal health care agreement. The cost to health boards of care provided under the reciprocal health care agreement is recognised within the total resources allocated to each health board each year.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 June 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Susan Deacon on 5 July 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is undertaking any initiatives on nicotine replacement therapy.
Answer
In line with the measures in
Smoking Kills, health boards were issued in April 1999 with guidance about extending and developing NHS efforts to help people stop smoking. One of the measures included the provision of one week's free nicotine replacement therapy for those smokers least able to afford to buy the products.
Health boards are investing an additional £1 million per annum over the period1999-2000 to 2001-02, on smoking cessation services.