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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

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.

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.

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.

The Scottish Government’s budget for 2025-26 includes £412.2 million for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) which is an increase of £18.8 million. This will enable SFRS to continue to deliver the high standard of services required to keep communities safe. This includes an increase from £43 million to £47 million in capital funding which will allow the service to invest more in property, fleet and equipment. The allocation of resources is a matter for the SFRS Board.

The Scottish Government is committed to working with SFRS to ensure continuing priority is given to the implementation of its wildfire strategy. The Service’s planned spend is circa £1.6 million over the course of the 3 year roll-out of its strategy. New equipment, vehicles and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) continues to be rolled out and SFRS will fully implement its wildfire strategy during the course of 2025. As part of its strategy SFRS is adopting ‘burn suppression’ techniques such as those in use in the new Mediterranean-style specialist wildfire units. Due to extensive training and the use of new techniques, SFRS’s ability to tackle wildfires has never been so advanced.

We expect Health Boards to write to patients when the patient is added to a waiting list for treatment to provide an estimation of their treatment date. In circumstances in which this cannot be provided, Boards are expected to signpost patients to an online platform where the patient can access further information about the waiting time for their agreed treatment in the responsible Health Board.

The revised Waiting Times Guidance, published in December 2023, includes a standard package of communications that all Health Boards should be providing. This ensures that patients are provided with clear communications throughout their care journey setting out what they should expect and their responsibilities while they are waiting for their appointment, test or treatment.

The guidance also makes clear that communications can be in any form that the patient has consented to, including via telephone, electronically or by post. It is important that patients are asked to confirm their needs at the beginning of their journey and their preferred format when receiving communication from the Health Board.

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.