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The Executive continues tomake its views known to the UK Government and the European Commission on theneed for measures to protect access to the main London hubs. These measuresshould not require peripheral areas of the UK to pay a premium for accessand should take into account the current level of service provision and theavailability of other transport options.

This is a matter for the Cityof Edinburgh Council.

The Strategic Rail Authority(SRA) is required, under section 73 of the Railways Act 1993. to maintain a publicregister which must include copies of all franchise agreements. The SRA public registeris kept at the SRA and may be viewed by appointment with the SRA Secretariat. Elementsof the franchise agreement are removed as set out in section 71(2) of the RailwaysAct 1993. The percentage removed from each franchise agreement tends to be smalland varies in each case.

These arrangements apply to thecurrent and the next franchise agreements.

The primary aim of the waterbornefreight grant (WFG) scheme is to encourage the development of new water freightroutes which take lorries off roads by contributing to possible revenue short fallduring the first three years of operation. In exceptional circumstances WFG mayalso be available where, without grant support, a service which currently takeslorries off our roads by transporting freight by water will cease. In both thesecircumstances applicants will be required to demonstrate that after a maximum ofthree years the service will be capable of operating without grant support.

Detailed guidance is currentlybeing developed and every application for grant will be considered on its meritsin terms of eligibility for grant assistance.

I refer the member to the answergiven to question S2O-2383 on 20 May 2004, which is available on the Parliament’swebsite, the search facility for which can be found at:http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/search.htm.

The actual level of funding supportavailable for individual waterborne freight grants will depend on a number of factorsincluding the projected cash flows of the proposed service (applicants will needto demonstrate that the proposed shipping route will be commercially viable afterthree years). In addition EC state aid approval was on the basis that there wouldbe an upper limit of grant support of 30% of the operating costs together with maximumfunding of €2 million over the three years of the shipping operation. These limitswere based on those already in place for a similar scheme in operation within theEU.

The Executive has held discussionswith British Airways, as well as other airlines, and the Department for Transporton a range of aviation matters including direct flights from Scotland.

No application has been made.

Local licensing authorities have the power to license under 18 discotheques under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act1982. This includes power to attach conditions to a licence which the organiserof the event must observe. An authorised officer of the licensing authority, the fire service or police may enter and inspect the premises at any time.

VisitScotland has lead responsibilityfor marketing Scotland as a must visit destination in its key target markets.VisitScotland’s current key markets include the United States of America, Germany, Sweden, France, Netherlands,Spain and Italy.  Key markets are agreed on an ongoing basis with VisitBritiainwithin the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding on overseas marketing.