- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 14 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive what plans have been put in place to carry out routine or other maintenance to the BP Forties pipeline system where the Southern Approach Road crosses it; who will bear the cost, and whether a risk assessment has been carried out.
Answer
The works undertaken during the Forth Replacement Crossing works will ensure further routine and other maintenance on the pipeline does not disrupt the Southern Approach Roads. Any future work on the pipeline after completion of the road will be carried out within BP''s risk assessments and at BP''s cost.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 14 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has undertaken an assessment of the geographical area likely to be affected by any damage to the BP Forties pipeline system during construction of the Forth Replacement Crossing.
Answer
Yes.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 03 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 14 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive whether, in relation to the BP Forties pipeline system, Transport Scotland investigated whether it would be safer to move the Southern Approach Road to link directly from the new Forth Bridge on the west side of Dundas Castle to the M9 at Winchburgh and, if so, for what reason the report of that investigation was not made available as part of the environmental statement for the Forth Crossing Act 2011.
Answer
During 2008, Transport Scotland considered a number of alternative options for the southern connecting roads. An assessment of the options and the reasoning for their rejection is provided in the DMRB Stage 2 Corridor Report. The location of the BP pipeline was considered in this assessment. This is outwith the remit of the Environmental Statement.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Mather on 14 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive for what reason an invalid email address was given on the Energy Consents Unit website for objections to be made to Forth Energy’s proposals for a biomass power station at Dundee and what steps it took to rectify this problem.
Answer
Press notices were placed in the Scotsman on 17 August 2010 and in the Dundee Courier and Edinburgh Gazette on 17 August 2010 and 24 August 2010 advising members of the public of the submission of the application. These notices advised members of the public to submit representations to energyconsents@scotland.gsi.gov.uk, which is the enquiries email address for the Energy Consents and Deployment Unit (ECDU). The second press notices for this development were placed in
The Scotsman on 9 November 2010 and in
The Courier and
Edinburgh Gazette on 9 November 2010 and 16 November 2010. These notices advised members of the public to submit representations to the dedicated Dundee Biomass email address dundeebiomass@scotland.gsi.gov.uk, which had been implemented to deal with the level of representations being received. The biomass section of the ECDU website quoted the dedicated email address as the point of contact during the consultation. The ECDU enquiries email address is quoted elsewhere on the website as general point of contact, hence no amendment or correction was required.
All representations received to either email addresses have been collated and logged.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 March 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Jim Mather on 14 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive how many objection letters its Energy Consents Unit has received in relation to Forth Energy’s proposals for a biomass power station at Dundee and, of those, how many have been published on the relevant website.
Answer
To date, the Energy Consents and Deployment Unit (ECDU) have received 36 consultation responses from a variety of organisations with an interest in the development. These responses are all available on the Scottish Government website. The ECDU have also received 3,292 representations from members of the public. These are not published on the Scottish Government website to protect the identities of individuals.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 24 February 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 10 March 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on research and development, broken down by portfolio, in each of the last five years.
Answer
Government spend on research and development (R&D) is collected through the Office for National Statistics Annual Government Research and Development Survey. The latest published figures are for the financial year 2008-09.
Scottish Government spend on research and development, 2004-05 to 2008-09
| Year | R&D spend by Portfolio (£ thousands) | Total |
| Education & Lifelong Learning | Finance & Sustainable Growth | Health & Wellbeing | Justice | Rural Affairs & Environment |
| 2004-2005 | 2,480 | 8,943 | 54,992 | 2,651 | 61,753 | 130,819 |
| 2005-2006 | 3,074 | 9,997 | 57,109 | 2,710 | 63,965 | 136,855 |
| 2006-2007 | 3,309 | 8,313 | 63,362 | 2,661 | 54,439 | 132,084 |
| 2007-2008 | 2,778 | 8,218 | 61,187 | 4,300 | 60,595 | 137,078 |
| 2008-2009 | 3,163 | 8,728 | 63,371 | 5,044 | 59,291 | 139,597 |
Source: Government Research and Development Survey, Office for National Statistics.
The table includes R&D spending by Scottish Government directorates, associated agencies and non-departmental public bodies.
However the table excludes:
Scottish Funding Council grants to universities for Research and Knowledge Transfer.
One-off funding mechanisms e.g. the £10 million Saltire Prize, £13 million WATERS scheme.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 December 2010
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Current Status:
Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 14 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it funds work in Scotland in the fields of conflict resolution, non-violence and cooperation; whether it has received proposals regarding a role for Scottish Churches House in this respect, and, if so, what its response is to such proposals.
Answer
Whilst recognising the merits of the proposal and the potential role that Scotland could play in promoting conflict resolution, non-violence and cooperation, the Scottish Government is not in a position to fund activity of the kind proposed at the current time. As a result the Scottish Government has, with regret, been unable to lend its support to the proposal relating to Scottish Churches House.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 28 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 8 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-36630 by Kenny MacAskill on 21 October 2010, whether it considers that police officers are not bound by the prohibition in section 3 of the Firearms Act 1968 on making guns without being registered as a firearms dealer.
Answer
It is not for the Scottish Government to provide detailed legal interpretation of the provisions in the Firearms Act 1968. Firearms policy and legislation is reserved to the UK Parliament.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 28 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 7 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-36630 by Kenny MacAskill on 21 October 2010, whether it considers that police officers are not bound by the prohibition in section 25 of the Firearms Act 1968 on the supply of firearms to anyone who is drunk or insane.
Answer
It is not for the Scottish Government to provide detailed legal interpretation of the provisions in the Firearms Act 1968. Firearms policy and legislation is reserved to the UK Parliament.
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 28 January 2011
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Current Status:
Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 7 February 2011
To ask the Scottish Executive whether its position on the entitlement of chief constables to deploy Taser weapons to frontline officers extends to the other weapons with the same legal classification under section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968.
Answer
It is not for the Scottish Government to provide detailed legal interpretation of the provisions in the Firearms Act 1968. Firearms policy and legislation is reserved to the UK Parliament.
