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 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.

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.

This legislation does not seek to emulate compulsory purchase legislation in every respect. Section 70 provides that ministers must publicise applications and seek views from those identified as interested parties in order to consider all relevant factors before coming to a decision. However, where there are matters relating to an application that are disputed, section 78 provides that these issues will be resolved by the land court. The proceedings of the land court are normally conducted in public.

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.

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.

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.

The reasons given in answer to question S1W-28916 relate to an absolute right to buy and because of that are not relevant to the crofting community right to buy salmon fishings. The crofting community right to buy is not an absolute right to buy. It is conditional on a range of criteria being met and can be exercised by a crofting community body only when ministers consider that the acquisition of the property would be in the public interest. There are also very tight constraints on when the right to buy salmon fishings can be exercised. So the existence of the right should have no impact on the value of salmon fishings. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa.

The Executive's Plan for Action on alcohol problems, which was published in January, sets out that alcohol problems services should be sensitive to the needs of particular groups including women. The Executive published an Alcohol Problems Support and Treatment Services Framework on 5 September, which identifies women as one of the groups who might need support to access services.The Health Education Board for Scotland, Alcohol Focus Scotland and the Scottish Association of Alcohol Action Teams are currently establishing a women and alcohol network. The network will provide a vehicle for the development and dissemination of good practice in working with women.

We are providing specific grants towards the costs of Gaelic-medium education, supporting 1,860 pupils in 59 primary schools across the length and breadth of Scotland.