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The Croft House Grant Scheme Guidance was last amended in August 2008. The amendment gave effect to a ministerial determination dating from December 2005 (the delay appears to have been an administrative oversight). The revised guidance was issued to the local area offices of the Scottish Government Rural Payments and Inspections Directorate and made available to applicants in August 2008.

My officials are studying the judgement in the case of between The Queen (on the application of TA Gwillim and Sons) and the Welsh Ministers as delivered by the Court of Appeal. Although the overall judgement was in favour of Messrs Gwillim, it also upheld part of the original decision made following the original hearing that it was not sufficient simply to be under an agri-environmental commitment but the producer had to show that production had been adversely affected. That principle was as the heart of the Scottish arrangements to address applications for relief because stock levels had been affected by either hardship or agri-environment conditions or both. This is clearly not a straightforward issue, hence the need to study the judgement carefully. I will write to you separately with our findings and although it is too soon to indicate what they might be; our guiding principle is that Scottish producers should be treated no worse than their Welsh counterparts.

No detailed assessment has been made as to the impact of operational wind farms on the carbon footprint.

As a matter of good practice, the Scottish Government encourages wind farm developers to note the guidance given by Calculating carbon savings from wind farms on Scottish peat lands - A New Approach which is published at

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/06/25114657/0.

This enables an indicative figure for the carbon impact of proposed wind farms on peat lands to be calculated.

The Scottish Government funded a study in 2007 to scope out the potential carbon impacts of wind farm development on peat. This study developed guidance and a method to calculate carbon emission savings associated with wind farm developments on peat using a full life cycle analysis approach.

(a) Yes - developers are encouraged to use the guidance above and its calculator when preparing formal applications for section 36 consent.

The carbon emissions from a wind farm development, and the predicted carbon payback, clearly represent an impact on the natural environment, and so consideration of this impact is included within a submission to ministers whenever such a calculation has been provided within the Environmental Statement. These impacts represent a material consideration in respect of both the natural environment and the Scottish Government''s obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008.

Scotland has a robust consenting system and Scottish ministers will always seek to strike the right balance between developing and delivering Scotland''s energy future and protecting environmental, cultural heritage, economic and community issues.

 (b) An emissions comparison (tonnes CO₂ emitted per Mega Watt Hour) between electricity generation by wind power against that generated by gas and by coal power stations is undertaken as part of the section 36 application process for wind farm applications.

The process applied to assess carbon impact of Wind Farm developments is described in the answer to question S3W-38016 on 22 December 2010.

The Scottish Government currently seeks advice from Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) on the carbon impacts calculated by developers.

No specific threshold is in force for carbon payback periods, however carbon impact is one of the many material considerations that ministers take into account in the determination of section 36 applications. Scotland has a robust consenting system and Scottish ministers will always seek to strike the right balance between developing and delivering Scotland''s energy future and protecting environmental, cultural heritage, economic and community issues.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

The process applied to assess carbon impact of wind farm developments is described in the answer to question S3W-38016 on 22 December 2010.

Applications to Scottish ministers for power stations, and those for significant power lines, needs to be accompanied by an Environmental Statement (ES), which describes the effects the development is likely to have on the environment.

Carbon Payback calculations are included within the ES documentation and during the consultation period the application, and the environmental statement, are made available locally for public inspection.

Specific information on individual or aggregated applications is not maintained centrally, however, a copy of each environmental statement for each wind farm is retained and is available for inspection at any time within the Scottish Government library at Victoria Quay, Edinburgh.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

We have no current plans to introduce such a ferry travel concession scheme.

There is no such national scheme. This is therefore a matter for commercial bus operators. The information requested is not held centrally.

This is a matter for local authorities.

There are no administrative costs to the Scottish Government as this work is part of the ongoing sponsorship tasks of sportscotland and the top-up swimming programme is delivered through sportscotland in partnership with Scottish Swimming. This is an operational matter for sportscotland and I have asked Stewart Harris, Chief Executive of sportscotland  to respond to the member directly.