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The information available is given in the following tables:

Birth and death rates, by health board, Scotland, 1995 -1998
	Birth rate 1						Death rate 2
	1995	1996	1997	1998				1995	1996	1997	1998
Scotland	11.7	11.6	11.6	11.2				11.8	11.8	11.6	11.6
Argyll & Clyde	11.8	11.6	11.7	10.9				12.2	12.6	12.3	12.5
Ayrshire & Arran	11.1	11.0	11.1	10.8				12.3	12.0	12.7	12.1
Borders	11.0	10.7	10.7	9.8				13.2	12.8	12.9	12.6
Dumfries & Galloway	11.1	10.9	10.6	10.3				11.9	12.8	12.4	12.3
Fife	11.5	11.0	11.0	11.0				11.3	11.4	11.2	11.5
Forth Valley	11.6	11.6	11.5	11.5				11.1	11.7	11.0	11.0
Grampian	11.5	11.4	11.4	11.4				10.3	9.9	9.8	9.9
Greater Glasgow	12.2	12.1	12.1	11.3				13.1	13.0	12.7	12.5
Highland	11.6	11.4	11.7	11.8				11.7	11.4	11.5	11.5
Lanarkshire	12.0	12.2	12.1	11.8				11.0	10.9	10.9	10.7
Lothian	12.0	11.8	11.9	11.4				11.0	11.3	10.8	10.7
Orkney	11.6	10.9	11.3	9.9				11.9	11.6	12.0	12.5
Shetland	12.6	11.7	12.4	11.6				10.1	10.9	10.6	10.6
Tayside	11.1	11.0	11.2	10.8				12.7	12.9	12.4	12.7
Western Isles	10.4	9.7	8.9	9.8				14.8	14.9	14.8	14.1
1 Live births per 1,000 population2 Deaths per 1,000 population

Expectation of life at birth, by sex and health board, Scotland
	1994-1996			1995-1997			1996-1998
	Males	Females		Males	Females		Males	Females
Scotland	72.0	77.7		72.2	77.8		72.4	77.9
Argyll & Clyde	71.0	77.2		71.2	77.3		71.1	77.3
Ayrshire & Arran	72.5	77.8		72.6	77.4		72.8	78.0
Borders	75.0	79.4		74.7	79.6		74.9	79.7
Dumfries & Galloway	73.7	78.8		73.9	79.1		74.2	79.0
Fife	73.1	78.5		73.4	78.8		73.4	78.7
Forth Valley	72.8	77.6		73.1	78.0		73.1	78.3
Grampian	73.7	79.1		73.9	79.4		74.2	79.6
Greater Glasgow	69.8	76.1		69.9	76.2		70.2	76.4
Highland	72.5	78.7		72.6	78.6		72.8	78.9
Lanarkshire	71.1	76.8		71.7	76.8		71.9	77.0
Lothian	72.8	78.1		72.9	78.2		73.0	78.2
Orkney	73.9	80.5		74.1	79.6		74.1	79.3
Shetland	71.9	79.0		72.1	80.6		72.6	80.0
Tayside	72.6	78.1		73.0	78.3		73.4	78.3
Western Isles	71.5	79.1		70.7	79.0		70.9	79.7

The Structural Funds Regulations direct Objective 2 support towards areas undergoing socio-economic change. Assistance has to be concentrated on significant areas most affected, with due regard to national priorities. In this context the minor changes to the wards proposed in Glasgow I announced on 2 December were defined better to reflect these priorities, in the light of representations made to the Scottish Executive by Glasgow City Council.

Local authorities are expected to meet the cost of pay awards within the total provision for Government Supported Expenditure, which will be £6,746 million next year, an increase of 3.7% over the comparable figure this year, and higher than the forecast increase in the RPI.

Authorised absence is defined as:

sickness;

medical and dental treatment;

bereavement;

domestic circumstances relating to exceptional hardship at home;

no school within walking distance and no transport arrangements;

study leave;

religious observance;

family holidays where attendance is otherwise satisfactory;

meetings prior to, and in, court;

attendance at, or in connection with, a Children's Hearing;

attendance at, or in connection with, a Child Care Review;

weddings of immediate family;

certified debates, sports, musical or theatrical productions not arranged by, or in conjunction with, the school;

extended visits overseas to relatives;sanctioned, extended absence in relation to children of travelling families.

Data on the numbers of individual pupils not attending school through authorised or unauthorised absence is not collated nationally. The information can only be represented as an aggregated number of possible attendance.The annual percentage of absence in secondary schools for the years 1996-97 to 1998-99 was as follows:

Secondary Schools	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99
Authorised Absence	11%	10%	10%
Unauthorised Absence	1%	1%	1%

I refer the member to the answer to S1W-2882 for the number of authorised absences among secondary school pupils in 1996-97, 1997-98 and 1998-99. More detailed information on categories of authorised absence is not collected by the Scottish Executive.

To assist education authorities, schools, teachers and parents in tackling non-attendance the Government supported the publication of the Scottish Initiative on Attendance, Absence and Attainment's good practice document Close to the Mark, which was published in December 1997. This publication offers practical support materials for schools, pulling together the examples of good practice identified by the Initiative in its work on attendance issues. It contains guidelines to help a school evaluate and develop its own practice in line with HMI publication How Good is our School?. Good practice is shared between schools through the Ethos NetworkSchools and education authorities have now agreed targets to raise attendance, and are putting in place strategies to meet those targets. The framework for setting targets was set out in Setting Targets - Raising Standards in Schools, published on 4 March 1998. Locally agreed targets where returned to HMI at the end of last year.Several initiatives funded under the Excellence Fund for Schools - Special Programme, including New Community Schools and Education Action Plans, contain components for reducing the level of absence.

The recent report by the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment (SACTRA) on "Transport and the Economy" highlighted the complexities associated with analysing the local economic impacts of transport schemes. They cautioned against exaggerated claims for the significance of such impacts, and argued that studies of local economic development impacts should take full account of the likely displacement of jobs from other areas. The report set out a number of recommendations on how such studies should be carried out. The Executive is currently considering, with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the implications of the SACTRA report for its future appraisal methodology.The appraisal carried out for the Strategic Roads Review indicated that the M74 Northern Extension would be likely to have an overall positive impact on the local economy. At this stage, it is impossible to be more precise than this.

The M74 Northern Extension was first proposed by Strathclyde Regional Council and has been taken forward by Glasgow City and South Lanarkshire Councils as successors to Strathclyde Region. No Government, past or present, has given any commitment to designate the proposed route a trunk road. A strategic route through Glasgow is already provided by the M8, which was incorporated into the trunk road network on 1 April 1996. The Executive is committing very significant resources to the M8 through Glasgow, including a £30m programme of structural repairs on the Kingston Bridge, to address the inherited problems. The M8 through Glasgow is used by high volumes of local traffic, including a significant element of commuting by car. The Strategic Roads Review appraisal shows that the M74 Northern Extension would have a similar mix of strategic and local traffic. The need for additional motorway capacity across the city has to be considered in the context of the Local Transport Strategies which Glasgow City, South Lanarkshire and all other Councils in the area have been asked to prepare. The authorities concerned are best placed to assess the contribution which the M74 scheme can make to the delivery of these strategies and to address the significant impacts inevitably associated with any urban motorway.

I have asked Glasgow City and South Lanarkshire Councils to take forward proposals for the M74 Northern Extension in the context of their Local Transport Strategies and in co-operation with other authorities, including Renfrewshire. These strategies should aim to improve access, including public transport access, across their areas and to reduce congestion, thus increasing the reliability of journey times. Such strategies should improve access to Glasgow Airport and assist in its development.