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NHS Grampian were escalated to Level 3 of the NHS Support and Intervention Escalation Framework in January 2025 for financial management and position. The Scottish Government are providing specific tailored support to NHS Grampian in order to help stabilise the financial position. Alongside additional cost improvement programmes, the support package includes a dedicated financial support lead within Scottish Government who frequently meets NHS Grampian Executives challenge their financial position and trajectories and ensure the Board is on track to meet financial improvement milestones.

NHS Grampian are escalated to Level 3 of the NHS Support and Intervention Escalation Framework for financial management and position and the Board continue to receive tailored support from the Scottish Government.

Outstanding brokerage must be repaid to Scottish Government once an NHS Board has returned to financial sustainability. At present, Scottish Government are working with NHS Grampian to secure a credible path to balance, and outstanding brokerage will be recovered once this has been achieved

The Scottish Government routinely engages with Welsh Government officials on a range of animal welfare issues, however, there has been no specific engagement on the commitment made to phase out greyhound racing in Wales.

As set out in my answer to S6W-35250 on 5 March 2025, as the landowners, it is for Oxygen Conservation Limited to consider how any reduction in the feral goat population should be achieved in practice. I understand that the landowner is not calling for eradication of the feral goats and that all future herbivore management will be informed by monitoring the species.

To address concerns on this issue, Oxygen Conservation have produced a question and answer document as well as a newsletter which has been circulated to all local residents.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government continues to provide support to the entire food and drink sector to help businesses with their economic growth ambitions. This includes £10 million funding for the period 2023-2025 to support the implementation of Scotland's food and drink strategy “Sustaining Scotland, Supplying the World” which outlines how we are driving growth for businesses across various sectors, including the drinks industry. In addition, we have invested over £7 million in the Scotland Food and Drink Export Plan since 2014, helping Scottish businesses to capitalise on key global market opportunities. Specifically in relation to whisky the Scottish Government continues to actively engage with the UK Government to strike a good deal for whisky in the proposed India Free Trade Agreement, which is the largest market for whisky in the world.

The Scottish Government continues to engage with all our partners to call for a long-term return to tariff free trading that has been mutually beneficial for the Scottish and US spirits sectors, as part of a wider UK-US negotiated solution. I met with the UK Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security on 2 April to discuss this. The Deputy First Minister met with the US Chamber of Commerce on 3 April and the First Minister met with senior figures in the whisky sector in New York on 7 April to hear directly from the business leaders involved and hosted a business round table which included the Scotch Whisky Association and the Food and Drink Federation on 16 April. The First Minister also met with the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, on the 11 April to discuss tariffs amongst other topics.

The shape of any potential trade deal between the UK and the US remains unclear, which makes analysis of potential impacts challenging.

The Scottish Government is engaging with the UK Government at ministerial and official level to get the details needed to analyse the implications of a potential deal for Scotland. We are also engaging with businesses to understand their views and concerns and, when further details are available, we will closely examine opportunities for Scotland alongside key issues like environmental protection and the protection of our public services.

As set out in my answer to S6W-35250 on 5 March 2025, the Scottish Government does not intend to provide feral goats with protected status. Feral goats are a non-native species and it is an offence to release any non-native species without a licence from NatureScot.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

We are acutely aware of the risk tariffs on the UK and globally pose on Scottish businesses.

We have carried out initial analysis of trade statistics to understand Scottish exposure to US trade across key products and where that may differ from the UK economy.

The First Minister discussed the matter with the Prime Minister on 11 April and made clear urgent action should be taken to protect Scotland’s economic interests.

The grant of planning permission does not confer any right to ignore, or remove any responsibility to comply with, other legislation, such as noise and statutory nuisance legislation. This would be a matter for the relevant local authority to consider and for the environmental health department of that authority to act if there was determined to be a breach of the relevant legislation.