Scottish Parliament e-Brief, Issue 231

Scottish Parliament e-Brief
Issue 231, 31^st January 2005

SECTION 1 - BUSINESS THIS WEEK

THE CHAMBER

Wednesday 2^nd February 2005
14:05 – 16:00	Stage 1 Debate: Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill
16:00 – 17:00	Sewel Motion: Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill
17:00 - 17:30	Member’s Business: Philip Lawrence Awards 2004 (Susan Deacon (LAB))

Thursday 3rd February 2005
09:30 – 12:00	SNP Debate: The Economy
12:00 – 12:30	First Minister's Question Time
14:00 – 15:00	Question Time: * Environment and Rural Development; * Health and Community Care; and * General Questions
15:00 – 15:30	Ministerial Statement: Grant Awards
15:30 – 17:00	Executive Debate: Local Government Finance (Scotland) Order 2005
17:00 – 17:30	Member’s Business: Cuts in Local Benefits Services (Brian Adam (SNP))

IN COMMITTEE
This week’s likely highlights in the Committee Corridors include:

Tuesday 1^st February 2005
AM	Equal Opportunities	The Deputy Justice Minister gives evidence on the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Bill.
	Finance	The Committee will consider the Executive’s response to its Stage 2 Report on the Budget Process 2005-06, before getting on with Stage 2 of the Budget (Scotland) (No.2) Bill.
	Procedures	The Minister or Parliamentary Business and her Deputy, along with senior civil servants, give evidence on Private Bills.
	Subordinate Legislation	The Inquiry into the Regulatory Framework in Scotland hears from the Law Society of Scotland and an academic.
PM	Enterprise and Culture	Members consider a paper on the proposed structure of its Business Growth inquiry.
	European and External Relations	The Committee will consider a note from the Legal Adviser concerning the issue of burning sewage sludge pellets and EU regulations relating to the burning of waste as fuel.
	Health	A briefing on the findings of its commissioned research into access to dental health services and a number of public petitions dominate the agenda.
	Justice 2	The Minister and officials give evidence to the Youth Justice Inquiry.
Wednesday 2^nd February 2005
AM	Communities	The Deputy Minister for Communities Charities gives Stage 1 evidence on the Trustee Investment (Scotland) Bill.
	Environment and Rural Development	The Inquiry into Climate Change hears from 3 panels of witnesses.
	Public Petitions	New petitions cover topics including community hospitals; control over Scottish fishing industry; and the influence of supermarkets in the food chain. The Committee will also return to the petitions on projects to help sex offenders avoid re-offending; complementary medicine; and cardiac care at Yorkhill hospital.

SECTION 2 - NEWS

More Special Constables to be recruited
The Scottish Executive is to invest £2m to introduce payments for Special Constables and increase the numbers involved in supporting regular officers. The funding - £1m in both 2006-7 and 2007-8 - will enable forces to pay Special Constables, who are currently unpaid volunteers, £1,000 a year, provided they agree to undertake 50 four-hour duties during those 12 months.

The move aims to boost the number of new recruits to the Special Constabulary and encourage existing officers to increase the time they give, helping towards the Executive's commitment to work with Chief Constables to increase the number of specials across Scotland by 500.

It follows the success of an Executive-funded pilot payment scheme in Grampian, in which the number of specials increased by nearly 40% during the first nine months.

Special Constables are volunteers who receive training from their local police force to work with and provide support to regular officers. They have the full powers of a Constable, wear the same uniform and carry the same equipment. Their role varies from force to force, but can include taking part in local, intelligence-based patrols and crime reduction initiatives, targeted at addressing specific problems.

Full Story

Biomass industry shows jobs potential
Scotland's fledgling biomass industry has the potential to create over 2,000 jobs and generate enough “green” electricity to power around 100,000 homes, according to a new study. The report into biomass - a renewable energy which uses carbon neutral energy crops - focuses on wood fuel and is published today by the Forum for Renewable Energy Development in Scotland (FREDS).

Benefits of biomass include:

It is carbon neutral (i.e. its use to generate electricity does not create additional CO2);
It can be stored and used on demand so free from intermittency problems; and
Fuel can be obtained from by-products of Scotland's forestry industry.

Full Story

SECTION 3 - NOTES ON THIS WEEK’S CHAMBER BUSINESS

WEDNESDAY begins with Stage 1 of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill.

This creates Bòrd na Gàidhlig as a statutory body which:

Will produce a national Gaelic plan;
Can require Scottish Public Authorities to produce Gaelic language plans (taking account of the number of Gaelic speakers);
Can issue guidance on Gaelic education; and
Can advise on Gaelic issues.

The Bòrd will exercise its functions with a view to securing the status of Gaelic as an official language of Scotland. Although campaigners for Gaelic have proposed that the Bill specifically state that Gaelic has “equal validity” or “equal status” with English, this is not included in the Bill.

The Scottish census in 2001 found that 93,282 people have some knowledge of Gaelic and of these, 58,652 people can speak the language. The Scottish census in 1991 found that 66,320 people could speak Gaelic, compared with 254,415 speakers in 1891. Local authorities with the highest proportion of those with some knowledge of Gaelic speakers are Eilean Siar (70%), Highland (9%) and Argyll and Bute (7%). There are also around 10,000 people in Glasgow and 6,000 in Edinburgh with some knowledge of Gaelic.

This is followed by a Sewel Motion on the UK Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill.

The Bill will create a new Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which will be a UK-wide body designed to take to the next level the campaign against serious organised crime. While it is entirely within the remit of the UK Government to create such a body, the Executive has been closely involved in the drafting of the legislation.

Some concerns have been expressed over political impartiality; the operational independence of chief constables; and the tripartite structure of police governance. Ministers, however, have stressed that nothing in the Bill will alter the tripartite arrangements for policing in Scotland or compromise the operational independence of chief constables.

There is also a power of direction in the Bill. And, while the interaction between the Home Secretary, SOCA and police forces in England and Wales is a matter for the Home Office, the Bill as currently drafted ensures that no UK Minister can direct Scottish police forces. Only Scottish Ministers would be able to exercise this power and this would only happen very rarely and in very specific circumstances, if at all. An example may be where police forces and SOCA were unable to reach agreement on providing each other with assistance on a particular operation. In such a case, Scottish Ministers would play the role of impartial arbiter to ensure that Scottish police forces and SOCA were able to continue working together to tackle serious organised crime as effectively as possible.

The day concludes with a Member’s Business debate on the Philip Lawrence Awards 2004 from Susan Deacon (LAB).

THURSDAY begins with an SNP debate on the Economy.

As is usual with opposition debates, no motion has yet been published. As always, however, the motion will be published in Section F of the Business Bulletin in due course and a full transcript of the debate will be available in the Official Report from 08:00 on Friday.