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In 2003, the number of visitors who came to Scotland from the Republic of Ireland totalled 48,000. These visitors represented 3.1% of the total number of tourists who visited Scotland last year from overseas.

The G8 Summit will be held at Gleneagles from 6 to 8 July next year. The decision to hold the event in Scotland was made by the Prime Minister and is warmly welcomed by the Scottish Executive.

The summit is a tremendous opportunity for Scotland to demonstrate its excellent facilities and infrastructure and to promote itself as a world-class destination for tourism, business and study as well as an attractive place to live. This will reinforce the work being done on Scotland’s International Image and is expected to bring significant benefits not only during the summit itself but in the long term as a result of heightened media exposure and increased visitor numbers.

I chair the Ministerial Group which oversees Scotland’s involvement with the G8 Summit. We are working closely with the UK Government and public agencies, non-governmental organisations and businesses throughout Scotland to ensure that Scotland reaps maximum benefits from the summit and that as many people as possible have an opportunity to be involved with events surrounding the summit.

The Executive is also committed to ensuring that the summit is safe and secure. Scottish police forces have considerable experience of managing large scale events and are well-equipped to cope with the security operation. Tayside Police is responsible for co-ordinating security arrangements in the area and will have support from other law enforcement agencies and forces south of the border.

The Scottish Executive has not received any notification from, or had any discussions with, Her Majesty’s Government regarding any likely reduction in civil service jobs based in Aberdeen. For those civil service posts that are the responsibility of UK ministers, it will be for them and their senior management teams to make decisions about structure, size, and organisation based on their assessment of business needs. However, the Scottish Executive would expect to be advised of any potential loss of jobs in Scotland.

According to data collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, 13 Scottish higher education institutions ran single and/or joint degree programmes in chemistry in each year between 1998-99 and 2002-03.

These institutions were University of Abertay Dundee, The Robert Gordon University, The University of Paisley, Glasgow Caledonian University, Napier University, The University of Edinburgh, The University of Glasgow, The University of Strathclyde, The University of Aberdeen, Heriot-Watt University, TheUniversity of Dundee, The University of St Andrews and The University of Stirling.In 2002-03 Bell College also ran a degree programme in chemistry.

For the session 2004-05, information from the UCAS and institutional websites indicates that chemistry is no longer offered as a single subject and/or part of a degree programme at the University of Stirling and Napier University.

A key aim of A Science Strategy for Scotland, published by the Scottish Executive in August 2001, is to ensure that enough people study science to a standard which will enable the future needs of the country to be met. However, the Executive does not have a policy in connection with the numbers of people taking particular degrees except in a few well-defined areas. My answer to question S2W-8365 answered on 7 June 2004 is also relevant. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’swebsite, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

The world’s first commercial wave energy project - in Islay - received support under the Scottish Renewables Obligation. More recently, the Executive has contributed over £2 million towards the establishment of the wave test facility at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. Discussions with our funding partners to extend the Centre to accommodate tidal projects are at an advanced stage.

The Forum for Renewable Energy Development in Scotland (FREDS), which I chair, recently published a report identifying the way ahead for marine energy in Scotland. Three members of the sub-group which produced this report have since been among the partners which have formed the consortium based UK Centre for Marine Renewable Energy, which will drive forward some of the key tasks identifiedby the report.

Following the FREDS marine energy report, the DTI announced a £50 million UK fund for marine renewables. We will work closely with DTI colleagues on the details of this scheme. We will also consider how best the Executive can support marine developments from within our own renewables programme budget.

New scientific information generated by the Fisheries Research Service in partnership with the Scottish fishing industry has been made available to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). The ICES Advisory Committee on Fishery Management is scheduled to publish advice on monkfish for fisheries managers on 22 October. By way of immediate action, we have secured around 705 tonnes of monkfish quota in international swaps with other member states during the course of this year and we will continue to pursue this avenue in the coming weeks.

There are no plans to acquire these statues. Phase 1 of the Parliament’s Art Strategy is now complete and decisions on the nature of phase 2 will be considered by the SPCB next year.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive, Communities Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

The Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 introduced the Scottish Secure Tenancy (SST)  for tenants of local authorities and registered social landlords, including housing associations registered with Communities Scotland. Under the SST landlords must give tenants not less than four weeks notice in writing, before increasing rents or other charges. Prior to increasing rents landlords must first consult with those tenants who would be affected. Landlords are required to have regard to the views expressed by those consulted.

The overall time lost due to sickness absence for the three years 2000-01 to 2002-03 for which pilot data is available is set out at Section A of the May 2004 publication entitled NHSScotland Occupational Health and Safety Minimum Dataset Pilot Data. The pilot data is provided by organisation type, Scotland, acute trusts, primary care trusts and health boards and special health boards not providing health care and can be accessed on the Information Statistics Division of NHS National Services Scotland website at http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/files/040525_web.pdf.