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Decisions on choice of carriageway standard are based on the combined results of economic, operational and environmental assessments. A modern single carriageway such as sections of the A9 between Perth and Inverness can carry an average annual daily flow of 22,000 vehicles. Where additional overtaking opportunities are considered necessary, widening by providing climbing lanes or wide-single carriageway is assessed. A wide-single carriageway can carry an average annual daily flow of 32,000 vehicles. Dual carriageway is considered where the additional benefits that further upgrading would create exceed the additional costs that would be incurred.

Summary findings and a full research report on Business Finance and Security over Moveable Property were published on Monday 23 September 2002. The research can be accessed on the Scottish Executive's website and copies have been lodged with the Parliament's Reference Centre.

The provisions of the bill do not provide for the acquisition of salmon fishings located on land that is not eligible croft land nor do they allow areas of land in different ownerships to be covered by a single application. If, as we expect, crofting community bodies are properly informed as to what they will have a right to buy there will be no such applications.

The proposals in the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill were the outcome of extensive public consultation, dating back to 1997, to which salmon fishing owners were free to respond. The Scottish Landowners Federation (SLF) has responded at every stage of consultation and made representations to ministers on several occasions about the land reform proposals. It is our understanding that the SLF represents the interests of many people who own salmon fishings. The Scottish Executive undertook a full public consultation on the draft bill which contained these proposals. Salmon fishing interests including owners responded to that consultation and commented on the proposals. In addition, parliamentary committees took evidence from a group representing the interests of owners of salmon fishings and from the SLF during stage 1 consideration of the bill.

No. However, decisions by ministers to consent to or to reject a crofting community right to buy application can be appealed in terms of section 88 of the bill to the sheriff court which is an independent and impartial tribunal for the purposes of article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. An aggrieved party would also have a right to resort to the courts using the remedy of judicial review.

Since the provisions of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill would not enable crofting communities to buy salmon fishings that cannot be exploited from croft land there is no need to amend the bill in the manner suggested.

The purpose of section 71(2) of the bill is not to qualify the meaning of "the public interest" as used in article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, but to elucidate its meaning as used in the bill.

The handling of the crofting community right to buy salmon fishings in the draft bill text would not have delivered the intended policy outcome. The policy intention is that crofting community bodies should be able to apply for the right to buy salmon fishings located on or directly exercisable from the croft land which they were acquiring or had acquired through the exercise of the crofting community right to buy. It was not intended that crofting communities should be able to acquire, through the right to buy, salmon fishings on or exercisable from additional land that they might acquire or that their acquisition of salmon fishings should be subject to the additional tests found in section 74 of the bill.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill contains no provisions that specify circumstances in which a crofting community body may or may not dispose of land acquired through the exercise of the right to buy. Any restrictions on disposal of land will be governed, where required, by the terms and conditions of the grant or loan documentation of the crofting community body's funders, and by the crofting community body's own Memorandum and Articles of Association.

The powers of compulsory acquisition in the bill do not seek to emulate compulsory purchase legislation in every respect. It is the policy of the Scottish Executive that crofting communities should have the opportunity to buy their croft land if the acquisition of the land would be compatible with sustainable development and in the public interest. A test of necessity would not be compatible with the achievement of that objective.