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Birthweights
Mr. Cousins:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the percentage of low birthweight
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live births in each Scottish health board area broken down by (a) single and (b) all live births for the last three years. [64425]
Mr. Galbraith:
The information is as follows:
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| 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All live births | Single live births | All live births | Single live births | All live births | Single live births | |
| Scotland | 6.9 | 5.6 | 6.9 | 5.5 | 6.8 | 5.5 |
| Argyll & Clyde | 6.8 | 5.2 | 6.5 | 5.6 | 7.0 | 5.6 |
| Ayrshire & Arran | 6.8 | 5.1 | 6.5 | 5.2 | 7.0 | 5.5 |
| Borders | 5.7 | 5.2 | 6.7 | 5.3 | 5.3 | 4.6 |
| Dumfries & Galloway | 6.3 | 5.1 | 6.6 | 4.7 | 6.1 | 4.6 |
| Fife | 7.3 | 5.7 | 6.6 | 5.4 | 6.1 | 5.1 |
| Forth Valley | 7.0 | 5.7 | 7.2 | 5.2 | 7.1 | 5.3 |
| Grampian | 5.6 | 4.7 | 6.0 | 4.9 | 6.3 | 5.2 |
| Greater Glasgow | 8.3 | 6.8 | 8.0 | 6.7 | 8.1 | 6.7 |
| Highland | 6.4 | 5.1 | 6.0 | 4.8 | 5.6 | 4.0 |
| Lanarkshire | 6.5 | 5.3 | 7.0 | 5.6 | 6.9 | 5.6 |
| Lothian | 6.7 | 5.4 | 7.3 | 5.8 | 6.5 | 5.1 |
| Orkney | 3.6 | 3.7 | 2.8 | 1.5 | 3.1 | 2.1 |
| Shetland | 1.8 | 1.8 | 4.4 | 3.3 | 4.8 | 3.1 |
| Tayside | 7.3 | 5.9 | 6.2 | 4.7 | 6.6 | 5.6 |
| Western Isles | 4.5 | 2.9 | 2.1 | 1.3 | 4.0 | 2.8 |
(20) Excludes cases resident outwith Scotland and those where the health board of residence is not known
(21) Excludes home births
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EU Funding (Mining Areas)
Mrs. Ewing: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list (a) in total and (b) by project over £50,000 the amount of EU funding given to mining or former mining areas in (i) Fife, (ii) Ayrshire and (iii) East Lothian over the past five years. [64456]
Mr. Macdonald [holding answer 17 December 1998]: The information on total European Structural Fund assistance is provided in the table. The individual project lists are extensive. I have arranged for them to be placed in the Library.
| £ | |
|---|---|
| Area | European Structural Funds Assistance (1 January 1994 to 31 December 1998 inclusive) |
| Fife | (22)66,935,119 |
| Ayrshire | (22)33,149,607 |
| East Lothian | 1,590,675 |
(22) These figures include a small number of projects where activity extends outwith the coalfield areas
World Heritage Sites
Mr. Dafis:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if the Joint Nature Conservation Committee was consulted on the proposal to nominate the Atlantic Frontier Continental Shelf as a world heritage site. [64412]
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Mr. Macdonald:
We have sought advice from Scottish Natural Heritage on the merits of the proposal to nominate the Atlantic Frontier Continental Shelf as a World Heritage Site. I understand that, in framing their advice, Scottish Natural Heritage had discussions with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee.
Mrs. Ewing:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what are the expected costs up to the end of the financial year 1999-2000 of replacing, upgrading and maintaining security, heating and ventilation and lighting control systems in the Scottish Office building at Victoria Quay; what changes there have been in those estimates over the last 18 months; and what has been the annual cost of these since the building opened. [64457]
Mr. Dewar
[holding answer 17 December 1998]: The maintenance of security, heating, ventilation and lighting systems at Victoria Quay is carried out by SERCo Ltd. under contract to The Scottish Office. The information sought is not held by The Scottish Office in the form requested. SERCo have, however, provided figures which relate to their categorisation of expenditure and financial year.
The table shows the expenditure on replacing, upgrading and maintaining the security, heating, ventilation and lighting systems over the 18 months to December 1998 and estimated expenditure for the calendar year 1999. There has been no change to estimates over the previous 18 months.
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| £ | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 1997-December 1998 | 1999-2000 | |||||
| Replacing | Upgrading | Maintaining | Replacing | Upgrading | Maintaining | |
| Security | -- | 33,000 | 10,000 | -- | 30,000 | 8,000 |
| Heating | -- | 3,600 | 215,898 | -- | 5,000 | 129,000 |
| Ventilation | -- | 9,600 | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| Lighting | 10,000 | 22,000 | 28,450 | 70,000 | 41,000 | 22,500 |
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Scottish Parliament
Mr. Salmond: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what proportion of his Department's staff will be redeployed in the Scottish Parliament; and how many new staff are being recruited for the Scottish Parliament. [64454]
Mr. McLeish [holding answer 17 December 1998]: Numbers have not yet been finalised. 172 posts in the Parliament have been advertised externally. 26 posts have been identified to be filled initially by Scottish Office staff on secondment to facilitate the transition from the set up to the operational phase.
Ministerial Flights
Mr. Maples: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, pursuant to his letter to the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon of 2 December 1998 concerning ministerial use of RAF flights, if the term "average cost" refers to the average cost per passenger. [64735]
Mr. Dewar:
The "average cost" refers to the average cost per trip and not average cost per passenger.
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Construction Industry
Mr. Levitt: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment he has made of the impact on the construction industry of the rule that self-employed subcontractors in continual employment for 11 weeks must be regarded as employees. [64461]
Mr. Ian McCartney: I am aware of no such rule.
Redundancy Payments
Liz Blackman: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what was the average time taken by each Redundancy Pay Services Department office to process claims for redundancy payment in the last year for which figures are available. [64515]
Mr. Ian McCartney:
In the Financial Year 1998-99, to date, the average time taken by each Redundancy Payments Office to process claims for redundancy payments was nine weeks for the Birmingham Office and six weeks for both the Edinburgh and Watford Offices.
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Judy Mallaber:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will change the rules for compensatory payments in lieu of notice in cases where a firm becomes insolvent so that the ex-employee is paid the full amount to which they would have been entitled if they had been made redundant by a firm which was not insolvent. [64564]
Mr. Ian McCartney:
Payments in lieu of notice constitute damages for breach of an employee's contract, and the courts have established (Westwood -v- Secretary of State for Employment 1984) that they are subject to the common law principle of mitigation. This means that they may be reduced by income which the employee received, or could have received, during what should have been the notice period. Compensatory notice payments made on behalf of insolvent employers by my Department, under the Employment Rights Act 1996, are therefore calculated on the same basis. They are also subject to a statutory limit (currently £220 per week) which is reviewed annually. There are no plans to abolish the limit as the statutory scheme is intended to provide only a basic level of protection for former employees of insolvent companies. Amounts owed above the statutory limit stand as a debt in the insolvency proceedings.
Judy Mallaber:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the average time taken by the Edgbaston Redundancy Pay Services Department office to process claims for redundancy payment; and what is the equivalent time for each other office. [64568]
Mr. Ian McCartney:
In the Financial Year 1998/99, to date, the average time taken by the Redundancy Payments Office in Edgbaston, Birmingham, to process claims for redundancy payments was nine weeks. The equivalent time for both the Edinburgh and Watford Offices was six weeks.
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