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Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S1W-08258

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 27 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what legal advice it has sought or obtained on whether it is possible to obtain derogations to allow a fuel subsidy to be paid in (a) any part of Scotland and (b) some or all of the islands of Scotland.

Question reference: S1W-08257

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 27 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will instigate studies into the schemes operated in (a) Greece to assist areas outwith Athens and Thessaloniki by the imposition of price ceilings on gasoline, (b) Italy for the areas of Val D'Aosta and Gon'ia where there is a derogation in respect of fuel duty and (c) France in terms of the policies aimed at assisting areas there suffering from low population.

Question reference: S1W-07048

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jack McConnell on 27 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on computers, or related equipment, for its own use since July 1999, and whether any of these purchases subsequently turned out to be unsuitable for the purposes for which they were intended, or have not yet been fully utilised.

The Scottish Executive has spent £3.13 million including VAT on computers and related equipment for use on the core Scottish Executive network since July 1999. None of these purchases has subsequently turned out to be unsuitable for the purpose for which it was intended. The figure above includes equipment held available for planned deployments during the next few months, valued at £263,000 including VAT. The Scottish Executive holds such a stock because purchasing single items of standard computer equipment can offer poor value for money.

Question reference: S1W-03331

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 December 1999
Current Status: Answered by Henry McLeish on 27 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it estimates that the number of unemployed persons in the three Local Enterprise Council areas of Inverness and Nairn, Ross and Cromarty and Moray, Badenoch and Strathspey which totalled 4,738 as at September 1999 will increase and, if so, what its estimates are of the number in these areas in January, February, March, April, May, June and July of 2000.

Question reference: S1W-04796

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 February 2000
Current Status: Answered by Jack McConnell on 25 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-3743 by Mr Jack McConnell on 24 January 2000, whether it will detail and publish the statistical information referred to as "few exceptions" which would have been included in a 1999 edition of The Scottish Abstract of Statistics.

The content of The Scottish Abstract of Statistics varied from year to year and no proposals for what would be included in a 1999 edition were developed. The editorial policy for the Abstract is to publish only information which is already in the public domain. The exceptions to which I referred in my previous answer concerned material in the 1998 edition from sources outwith the Executive. We could not readily establish whether the providers of that information had previously formally published it. This would include, for example, some tables in the leisure and tourism section provided by sporting bodies.

Question reference: S1W-08607

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 July 2000
Current Status: Answered by Henry McLeish on 20 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether there is any correlation between the number of tourists visiting rural Scotland and fuel prices; if so, how many fewer tourists visit rural Scotland as a result of each one pence rise in the price of petrol and, if it does not hold this information, whether it will commission a research study on this topic.

Question reference: S1W-08329

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 20 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to make financial assistance available to independent rural petrol stations in respect of any additional costs in replacing their existing price display boards which may result in the event that petrol prices exceed #1 per litre.

Question reference: S1W-08330

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 18 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has received the Food Standards Agency task force report into meat hygiene inspection charges and, if so, whether it contains recommendations to (a) underwrite the costs of veterinary inspection at low throughput plants and (b) place a cap on charges; what response it will make to such recommendations and others within the report, and whether it will make a ministerial statement on this issue.

I have been advised by the Food Standards Agency that the Meat Hygiene Inspection Charges Task Force Report was published on 26 June. The report is available on the FSA website and a copy has been placed in SPICe.

The report recommends that inspection charges for all plants should be no greater than the EU standard charge, irrespective of the actual costs of veterinary inspection in any particular plant. The Scottish Executive in conjunction with other UK Agricultural Departments and the Food Standards Agency are considering the Report of the Meat Hygiene Inspection Charges Task Force. An announcement will be made in due course.

Question reference: S1W-08331

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Susan Deacon on 18 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the planned veterinary supervision levels, in conjunction with the existing Meat Hygiene Service charging arrangements, will cause any closures of small and medium-si'ed local abattoirs and cutting plants; if so, what assessment it has made of the number of any job losses, and what implications will there be for animal welfare, given that, if such abattoirs and cutting plants close, animals will have to be transported over much greater distances.

Question reference: S1W-08256

Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 June 2000
Current Status: Answered by Sarah Boyack on 18 July 2000

To ask the Scottish Executive what studies it has made or plans to make into the methods by which other EU states provide assistance to rural areas, including motorists and businesses in these areas, to tackle extra costs as a result of (a) higher fuel prices, (b) remoteness of location and (c) distance from market.