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This is a matter for education authorities. The information requested is not held centrally.

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) had the lead role in contributing to the proposed directive from a UK perspective. In fulfilling this role the DfES consulted the devolved administrations.

Responsibility for occupational health and safety matters for staff working in childcare rests with employers, whether local authority, private or voluntary sector providers. Should an outbreak of measles or mumps occur in a school or a nursery, local public health professionals, in close consultation with education authorities, staff and parents, would initiate appropriate and timely action to control its spread. The childhood immunisation programme aims to prevent disease at the individual level and control or eradicate disease at the population level. As such, the Executive will continue to encourage high immunisation uptake, in order to protect the population as a whole. The Executive will also continue to work with health professionals to provide factual information to the parents of children due to be immunised, to allow them to make an informed choice for vaccination.

Guidance will be issued to local authorities as and when the various taxi provisions relating to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 come into effect. However, my officials are in touch with local authorities to keep them informed of developments.

An independent task group is currently reviewing all the licensing provisions of the 1982 act, including those relating to taxis and private hire cars. I understand that the task group will be consulting shortly on their emerging findings with a view to reporting back to ministers with their recommendations later in the year.

The Scottish Taxi Federation is automatically consulted on all matters relating to taxi licensing in Scotland.

The Scottish Executive and the Enterprise Network will continue to support the textiles industry in Scotland. The Scottish Textiles team within the Enterprise Network was set up in May 2001 to assist the industry to remain one of Scotland's key manufacturing sectors, driven by continual product and design innovation, new technology, highly skilled workers and successful marketing.

The Scottish Executive provides over £2 million per year in funding to the Family Fund Trust to provide a range of support, including holidays, to families with severely disabled children.

Concerns over patient health and safety and issues, around surgical instruments used in routine tonsil and adenoid surgery, have now been resolved and surgery recommenced with effect from 11 March. I expect NHS boards to be taking local action to get waiting for these routine procedures down to acceptable levels as quickly as possible. In addition, the National Waiting Times Unit has identified reducing waiting for routine tonsil and adenoid surgery as one of its priorities for action. The unit is currently assessing NHS boards' Local Health Plans to determine how best to tackle waiting in 2002-03.

Following the recent suspension of non-emergency adenotonsillar surgery, to allow an audit to be carried out in to the safety of single use instruments, the Chief Medical Officer wrote out to the service on 15 February, advising that the audit had shown there was no significant increase in secondary haemorrhage, following the introduction of single use equipment. Routine adenoid and tonsillar surgery was, therefore, recommenced from 11 March.