Last year, I announced that there would be a judge-led, statutory Public Inquiry into the investigation of Emma Caldwell's murder in 2005.

I can now confirm that Lord Scott, a current Senator of the College of Justice, has agreed to chair the Public Inquiry. I am pleased that someone of Lord Scott’s experience and legal standing will chair this important inquiry.

I have a statutory obligation to consult Lord Scott on the terms of reference for the Inquiry. I met with him earlier this week and we will meet again in due course to discuss the terms of reference and timescales for the Inquiry’s formal setting up date.

It is also my intention to share terms of reference with the family of Emma Caldwell and other interested parties to hear their views on the Inquiry’s remit. I will provide a further update to Parliament in due course.

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.

This information is not held by the Scottish Government and is a matter for Higher Education Institutes and NHS Boards.

Health Improvement Scotland are working with all NHS boards and partner organisations to standardise the reporting of adverse events, and have developed a national framework which was published in February 2025.

This also includes a standard review process through the development of a national Significant Adverse Event Review template with associated guidance and national learning summary. The category of violence and aggression (which includes instances of sexual violence) is a priority category.

The safety of staff and patients is the responsibility of the individual Health Board. We expect Health Boards to make every effort to keep staff, patients and service users safe and to report incidents to the police where appropriate.

The courts have extensive powers to deal robustly with sexual offending. All instances of such behaviour should be reported and escalated to Police Scotland as quickly as possible for consideration of necessary action.

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 2025-26 Scottish Budget includes almost £2.2 billion for social care and integration – exceeding our commitment to increase funding by 25% by almost £350 million.

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.

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.

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 https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

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 https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers