- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Henry McLeish on 27 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will develop a strategy to provide greater emphasis on indigenous business rather than on inward investment, and if so, what will be its components and whether it will consult on the strategy.
Answer
I have recently asked officials to devise a Framework for Economic Development in Scotland. It will address a range of questions relating to Scotland's economic development and should provide an integrated and coherent framework within which to consider a range of economic policy questions such as the roles of inward investment and indigenous business. An extensive consultation exercise is currently underway. This involves face-to-face meetings between officials and a wide range of interested parties across Scotland and an open invitation to any other individuals or organisations, through a press release and consultation paper on the Scottish Executive web site, to submit their views.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Ross Finnie on 27 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what the total value is of financial assistance that has been provided in Scotland for each of the past five years to the pig industry.
Answer
The CAP pigs regime does not provide direct support to pig farmers. This sector does benefit indirectly through EU funded private storage aids and export refunds, although the benefit to the Scottish industry cannot be accurately quantified.The following table lists offers of known financial support which have been made to this sector over the past five years.Offers of financial assistance made to the pig industry 1995-1999 (£'000s)
1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 |
547 | 578 | 100 | 319 | 3,100 |
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 27 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will list, for the last period for which information is available, the record of each local authority in Scotland for payment of debt, showing the average number of days within which each local authority has paid its suppliers and other creditors; whether it considers that these records are satisfactory and, if not, whether it will take steps to ensure that those local authorities which are not settling debts timeously do so; and after what period of time it estimates that such steps would result in all local authorities settling their debts timeously.
Answer
Payment arrangements are a matter between local authorities and individual suppliers. The latest information on the percentage of invoices that authorities pay within 30 days is published by the Accounts Commission in their Annual Report Comparing the Performance of Scottish Councils 1997-98. As noted in my response to question S1O-332, I spoke to Councillor Norman Murray, president of CoSLA, asking him to draw to the attention of councils the requirements of the Late Payment of Commercial Debt (Interest) Act 1998 and the importance of paying their bills on time. CoSLA wrote to all local authorities advising them of this on 1 October.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Henry McLeish on 27 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive how many businesses there were in Scotland at the time of publication of Making it Work Together, and of them, how many were (a) small, and (b) large and what its estimate is of these figures for each of the next ten years.
Answer
The latest estimates available for the number and size of businesses in Scotland are for November 1998. At that time there were an estimated 299,110 enterprises operating in Scotland. Of these, 293,705 were small enterprises (0-49 employees), 3,275 were medium-sized enterprises (50-249 employees) and 2,130 were large enterprises (250+ employees).Further details are available in a Government Statistical Service News Release which was published on Wednesday 26 January 2000. A copy is available in SPICe.The Scottish Executive does not make statistical projections for the number of businesses operating in Scotland in future years.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Henry McLeish on 27 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive in what way its mentoring scheme will differ from previous schemes, and (a) what is its estimated annual cost; (b) what will each mentor be paid; (c) who will choose mentors, and (d) from what business organisations it has taken advice regarding the scheme.
Answer
The introduction of a national mentoring scheme is a Programme for Government commitment, and we are on course to introduce Business Mentoring Scotland in April as planned. We hope to be able to announce details of the scheme within the next month or so.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 27 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has received written representations from the Scottish Council of Development and Industry opposing the decision to abandon the policy of a common UK non-domestic poundage and in particular to set a provisional poundage which is 10.1% higher than that in England.
Answer
Yes.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Wendy Alexander on 27 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether its plans to introduce probationary tenancies are necessary given existing legislative measures to curb anti-social behaviour by tenants including powers to evict, provisions contained within the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and powers under section 48 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987.
Answer
Yes. Changes are necessary to provide a mechanism to offer probationary tenancies to former tenants who have been guilty of anti-social behaviour. This is not possible under existing legislation.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 January 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Henry McLeish on 27 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will consider the introduction of the American policy of corporate venturing to promote growth of small businesses.
Answer
The Scottish Executive believes that corporate venturing can bring significant benefits to both small businesses and their larger corporate partners, and we want to encourage the establishment of more such relationships in Scotland. The Executive therefore fully supports the UK Government's commitment to introduce corporate venturing tax incentives in this year's Finance Bill and we have asked Scottish Enterprise to consider specific initiatives to help stimulate a culture of corporate venturing in Scotland.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 January 2000
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Current Status:
Answered by Sam Galbraith on 26 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has received any representations from the Dyslexia Institute Bursary Fund (Scotland); if so, what estimate that body has made as to the proportion of the population suffering from some degree of dyslexia, and what steps it will take in order to provide appropriate tuition at an early age to help children with dyslexia acquire basic skills in reading, writing and numeracy.
Answer
The Scottish Executive has received no representations from the Dyslexia Institute Bursary Fund (Scotland).The Scottish Executive is providing over £5 million in 2000-01 to local authorities for in-service development and training of staff working with pupils with special educational needs, including dyslexia. £1 million of this funding is directed towards staff working with pupils in the early years of primary school.
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 21 December 1999
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Current Status:
Answered by Jack McConnell on 25 January 2000
To ask the Scottish Executive what access it has to papers of the previous administration and whether that access differs from the practice followed when there is a change of administration of Her Majesty's Government.
Answer
When there is a change of Administration of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, there is a long established convention that a new Administration does not normally have access to papers of a previous Administration of a different political complexion. The convention covers, in particular, Ministers' own deliberations and the advice given to them by officials, other than written advice from the Law Officers and those papers which were published or put in the public domain by the predecessor Administration.In applying the convention to the devolved administration in Scotland any information contained in administrative and departmental records belonging to a Minister of the Crown or a UK Government Department is treated as if it were contained in papers of a previous Administration of a different political complexion. This convention, therefore, qualifies the right conferred upon the Scottish Ministers by Article 10(2)(b) of the Transfer of Property (Scottish Ministers) Order 1999 (SI 1999/1104) to have access to certain administrative and departmental records belonging to a Minister of the Crown or a UK Government Department. In practice this means, in particular, that Scottish Ministers do not normally have access to advice given to Scottish Office Ministers or to the deliberations of those Ministers in papers dated before 1 July 1999, unless they have been published. Written opinions of the UK Law Officers which date from before 1 July 1999 may be made available.
