IOG: Parliament News, issue 42/jan 2005

Scottish Affairs web site

Events

3 January: Tom McCabe, Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, announced that every local authority in Scotland will receive its share of a £100 million Quality of Life Fund to address local issues. Councils have already been allocated £180 million of Quality of Life funding which has been used for projects such as street lighting, tackling graffiti, health promotion for children and riverbank clean-ups.

7 January: Jack McConnell, First Minister, and Cathy Jamieson, Minister for Justice, met with supporters from both Rangers and Celtic to discuss ways of tackling sectarianism in Scotland.

10 January: Allan Wilson, Deputy Minister for Enterprise, announced funding worth £570,000 for the Strathclyde Entrepreneurial Network (SEN) project run by the University of Strathclyde. The aim of the project is to help businesses benefit from university research and commercialisation.

11 January: Jack McConnell, First Minister, announced the next stage of the government's Fresh Talent project, which aims to help tackle declining population by attracting people to live and work in Scotland. Mr McConnell revealed plans to extend Scotland's two year student work scheme to overseas students who complete an HND, and a government fund to help universities and colleges support international students settle in Scottish communities. Mr McConnell also formally launched the new Relocation Advisory Service (available at http://www.scotlandistheplace.com) that offers practical support and advice to people interested in living and working in Scotland.

12 January: Ross Finnie, Minister for the Environment, announced the Executive's intention to change the way the marine environment is managed. Mr Finnie said that last year's consultation identified emerging priority and stated that he is firmly committed to the concept of a marine environment strategy to ensure that fishing and tourist industries, energy interests, environmentalists and local communities work more effectively towards shared objectives.

13 January: Nicol Stephen, Minister for Transport, announced that a new national transport agency focusing on delivering major road and rail improvements will be based in Glasgow. Over the next decade the agency will be responsible for delivering the Executive's £3 billion capital investment programme of transport improvements for rail, tram and trunk roads.

13 January: Ross Finnie, Minister for Environment and Rural Development, announced Executive funding of £150,000 each year for the next three years, to be granted to national and regional projects that address the sustainable use of resources, energy and travel, and environmental justice.

13 January: publication of the Audit Scotland report on councils' corporate performance. Tom McCabe, Minister for Public Sector Reform, stated that local authorities continue to improve in a number of areas but stated that in the area of council tax collection rates Scottish councils lag well behind their counterparts in England and Wales.

13 January: 100 primary school pupils from St Jude's Primary School in Glasgow planted five commemorative trees in the landscaped grounds of the new Parliament.

14 January: Peter Peacock, Minister for Education, announced that councils will be able to use their share of funding of £34.9 million to employ up to 1,000 extra school support staff. The new staff are intended to free up teachers' time to teach and allow schools to better deal with challenging pupils.

14 January: Lewis Macdonald, Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development, announced a five-year strategy to strengthen the relevance of SEERAD's future research programme to policy development. The Strategic Research for SEERAD 2005-10: Environment, Biology and Agriculture will ensure publicly funded research is linked directly to the development of policy in the key areas of environment, agriculture and land use. The strategy will be backed by £7 million in extra funding over the next three years to add to the present funding of £50 million per year for environmental, biological and agricultural research.

17 January: Scottish Ministers pledged to support London's bid for the 2012 Olympics and to take full advantage of the sporting, business, tourism and cultural spin off that will arise for Scotland.

17 January: Jim Wallace, Minister for Lifelong Learning, announced that the maximum Young Students Bursary (YSB) will go up from £2,150 to £2,395 and that the Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) scheme which is currently availably mainly for undergraduate and HNC/HND courses, will be extended to all those undertaking full and part-time postgraduate study.

18 January: Peter Peacock, Minister for Education, announced that the latest figures show that spending on school education rose by 10% to £3.9 billion last year.

18 January: Regarding proposals for a new Supreme Court that will replace the House of Lords as the highest court of appeal in the UK, the Executive made the following points in its official response to the Department of Constitutional Affairs:

the Supreme Court should be the highest court of appeal for Scottish civil cases, taking over the current House of Lords' role. Significant areas of civil law cover both Scottish and English legal systems, and there is merit in consistent judicial opinions across all of the UK;
the Supreme Court will continue to hear devolution issues arising from disputes concerning the Scotland Act 1998, for example relating to European Convention on Human Rights issues and the reserved/devolved divide;
the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh will continue to be the highest court for criminal appeals. Criminal law differs to a much greater extent between Scotland and England, and there is no reason for this system to change.

18 January: Ross Finnie, Minister for Fisheries, and his deputy Lewis Macdonald met with Svein Ludwigsen, the Norwegian Minister for Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, to discuss a range of aquaculture and sea fisheries issues, including trade on farmed salmon and the opportunities for collaboration in areas of common interest.

18 January: Johann Lamont, Deputy Minister for Communities, launched A Financial Inclusion Action Plan (http//www.Scotland.gov.uk/library5/finance/fiaptp-00.asp) which aims to help more people take control of their finances and access suitable financial services.

18 January: publication of details of the financial agreement that will see around £325 million transferred from the Department for Transport to the Executive. Once the Railways Bill is enacted it will devolve powers to Scottish Ministers to determine railways strategies; to let, monitor and manage the Scotrail franchise; and to specify rail infrastructure needs in Scotland. Ministers will also be able to set fares and fund improvement to the rails. Safety and licensing functions will remain reserved to UK Ministers.

19 January: Ross Finnie, Minister for Environment, announced additional funding from his department to the Eco Schools programme from £50,000 to £100,000 in each of the next three years. This complements £125,00 from the Education Department per year in the same period. The Eco Schools programme is an award scheme that encourages young people to take action on the environment and to live a more sustainable lifestyle.

20 January: launch of the independent Local Government Finance Review Committee's consultation, seeking views on how local services are paid for. The Committee was set up by the Executive to review different forms of local taxation, including reform of the council tax.

21 January: Jim Wallace, Deputy First Minister, announced that Scotland will reap huge benefits from a new agreement signed in Beijing by Mr He Guangwei and Mr Jack Straw. The granting by the Chinese Government of Approved Destination Status (ADS) to the UK means tourists from designated regions within China will now be able to travel on a leisure tourism visa.

24 January: an Action Plan between Scotland and the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia was signed in Edinburgh by Tom McCabe, Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, and Wolfram Kuschke from NRW. The key areas of co-operation of the Action Plan are renewable energy, biotechnology, regional policy and structural funds, entrepreneurship, European policy, administrative reform and infrastructure investment.

24 January: publication of an independent report by Sir John Orr reviewing the handling of marches and parades. The report proposes that arrangements for the planning of marches and parades should be modernised to allow greater community involvement and more informed decision making.

25 January: George Reid, the Presiding Officer, launched the 'MSPs in schools' pilot scheme which involves all eight electoral regions in Scotland, with MSPs from each political party and one independent MSP taking part. The scheme aims to give pupils the opportunity to learn more about what happens in their Parliament and to gain an understanding of how they can influence the process.

25 January: launch of a new website dedicated to the Scottish Affairs office at Washington DC in the USA. The office, based in the British Embassy, has been representing Scotland's devolved government in the US since October 2001.

26 January: Hugh Henry, Deputy Minister for Justice, announced the creation of a new central Decontamination Service to help Scottish authorities and organisations prepare for and deal with incidents where chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials are released into the environment.

27 January: Ross Finnie, Minister for Rural Development, announced that twenty areas of Scotland have been designated Rural Services Priority Areas (RSPA) after the identification of disadvantage in service provision, access to services and subsequently opportunities. The 20 RSPAs, identified by analysing the results of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, will be in local authority areas: Argyll and Bute, Western Isles, Highland, Orkney Islands, Angus, Dumfries and Galloway, East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire.

27 January: George Reid, the Presiding Officer, wrote to the Finance Committee on behalf of the Corporate Body with information about the valuation of Holyrood for accounts purposes. The Corporate Body noted that the estimated final cost of Holyrood remains unchanged at £430.4 million. £17m of this consists of 'non-building' costs such as fixtures and fittings, and the building itself was independently valued for accounting purposes at £333m, making a total of £350m. The difference of £80.4m will be reflected in Parliament's 2004-05 accounts.

29 January: Ross Finnie, Minister for Fisheries, accompanied Dr Joe Borg, Europe's new Fisheries Commissioner, on his visit to Peterhead and Fraserburgh.

31 January: publication of proposals for the "Draft Regulations and Guidance on Part One of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004" which aims to establish a statutory framework at the local level for civil protection against the threat posed by natural or man made emergencies.

31 January: publication of the final report of the Atkinson Review examining the measurement of government output and productivity. Tom McCabe, Minister for Public Service Reform, said the report will make a significant contribution to the accurate measurement of public sector productivity in the UK and Scotland where the Executive participated fully.

Appointments

12 January: Andrew Arbuckle was sworn in as a new regional MSP (Liberal Democrats) for Mid-Scotland and Fife. Mr Arbuckle replaces Keith Raffan who resigned as an MSP on 7 January.

19 January: Mr Andrew Dewar-Durie was reappointed by UK Fisheries Ministers as Chairman of the Sea Fish Industry Authority.

Bills

20 January: the Parliament agreed to the general principles of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1. The main purpose of this Bill is to dissolve the Scottish Further Education Funding Council and the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, and create a new body, to be called the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council.

27 January: the Parliament agreed to the general principles of the Budget (Scotland) (No 2) Bill: Stage 1.

A summary of the Bills passed by the Parliament in the 1999-2003 session can be found on the Parliament website at www.scottish.parliament.uk/parl_bus/bills/bill%20summaries.pdf

Committees

11 January: publication of the Health Committee's report into Stewart Maxwell's Member's Bill, entitled The Prohibition of Smoking in Regulated Areas (Scotland) Bill. The Committee supports the general principles of the Bill but thinks that a partial ban on smoking in enclosed public places is not sufficient to achieve the objectives of the Bill and that therefore the Bill does not go far enough.

14 January: publication of a report by the Standards Committee setting out its intention to introduce a Committee Bill to Parliament later in 2005. The Bill would replace the existing secondary legislation (the Members' Interests Order) which governs the registration of Members' financial interests. The proposals include registration of certain non-financial interests by MSPs through the use of an objective 'influence' test.

18 January: the Procedures Committee launched a major inquiry into the operation of what has become known as the 'Sewel Convention'. This is the process where the Parliament is asked to consent, by means of a 'Sewel motion', to any Westminster Bill that changes the law on a devolved matter, or that alters the range of powers devolved to the Parliament or to Scottish Ministers.

25 January: the Health Committee published a report on forward planning of staffing levels in the NHS and raised concerns that there may not be sufficient staff available to meet the needs of the NHS in the future.

26 January: the Environment and Rural Development Committee held a 'round table' of leading climate change scientists, representatives of industry and campaigning organisation for discussions on climate change policy in Scotland.

26 January: the Education Committee published its Stage 1 report on the general principles of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill. The Committee believes that the Bill will contribute to securing the future of Gaelic but it will not be enough on its own but should be backed up by real commitment by the Executive to the language and the Gaelic community and, in particular, to Gaelic education.

Research opportunities

The Scottish Parliament has a budget for commissioning research for Parliamentary committees and holds a database of researchers interested in tendering for committee research. Anyone wishing to be included in the database should complete the on-line form on the Parliament website at www.scottish.parliament.uk/whats_happening/contracts/contract02-01.htm

Scottish Executive Publications

Scottish Executive publications can be accessed on the Scottish Executive website at www.scotland.gov.uk/publications/recent.aspx

Some of those published in the last month include:

Education Department: Departmental Business Delivery and Improvement Plan 2004-05. 1/01/2005

Registration Services (Scotland) Bill - Consultation: proposed legislation. 2/01/2005

Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004: Consultation on Draft Guidance on Parenting Orders: Part 9 of the Antisocial Behaviour (Scotland) Act 2004 which makes provision for parenting orders. 7/01/2005

Strategic Research for SEERAD: research strategy for SEERAD 2005-2010 Environment, Biology and Agriculture. 13/01/2005

Road User Charging (Or Congestion Charging) Consultation - Consultation on Regulations to be Made Under Sections 49, 55, 56, 81 and Schedule 1 of the Transport Scotland Act 2001 - Consultation Responses. 18/01/2005

Financial Inclusion Plan: promoting financial inclusion is part of the Executive's Closing the Opportunity Gap approach to tackling poverty and deprivation. 18/01/2005

Scotland's Budget Documents 2005-06: Budget (Scotland) (No.2) Bill - Supporting Document for the year ending 31 March 2006. 19/01/2005

Review of Marches and Parades in Scotland: report from Sir John Orr on his review of marches and parades. 24/01/2005

Public Attitudes to the Environment in Scotland - Technical Report: final report of analysis of responses to the 'Public Attitudes to the Environment in Scotland' survey 2002. 27/01/2005

Scotland's Budget Documents: The 2004-05 Spring Budget Revision to the Budget (Scotland) Act for the year ending 31 March 2005. 27/01/2005

Consultation on Administration and Enforcement of EC Regulation 1946/2003 on the Transboundary Movements of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in Scotland: this EC Regulation aims to establish a common system of notification and information for transboundary movements of genetically modified organisms and implements the aspects of the Cartagena Protocol. 28/01/05

Guidance on Local Authority Accountability Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004: guidance on the Local Authority Accountability provisions which are part of the Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004. 31/01/2005

Links to other issues of Parliament News

Contact

Should you have any comments or enquiries please do not hesitate to contact Margaret MacPherson at the Institute of Governance.

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