Meeting of the Parliament 29 January 2026 [Draft]
::If Finlay Carson cares about animal welfare as he says he does, maybe he should care about future proofing our legislation as well. The bill may not do everything that we might want it to do, but that does not mean that this step is not an important one.
Broken legs, spinal injuries, head trauma and lifelong pain are not rare accidents but are predictable outcomes of an industry that is built on speed, strain and profit, and no amount of tweaking can change that fundamental reality. As the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission has made clear, regulation cannot remove the inherent harms of greyhound racing. I say to Mr Carson that the only way to protect these dogs is to end the practice entirely.
I recognise the phenomenal work of the organisations that have brought us to this point. Scotland Against Greyhound Exploitation, OneKind, the Dogs Trust, Blue Cross, the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and so many others have worked with compassion, rigour and determination to expose the realities of greyhound racing and advocate for a kinder alternative and a ban. Their briefings for this afternoon’s stage 1 debate do not deal in abstractions; they tell the stories of individual dogs who have been left injured and traumatised or discarded. Sometimes, if those dogs are lucky, they are patiently rehabilitated by charities when the industry could no longer profit from them. Those organisations understand something fundamental: that our responsibility to animals does not end when they stop being useful to us.
Public support for the bill is strong and consistent across Scotland. People know that the practice belongs in the past. Other nations are moving on, and Scotland, with its proud history of animal welfare leadership, must not be left behind. This is a modest bill with a profound moral purpose. It seeks to prevent future suffering and draw a clear line against cruelty, and it says that, in Scotland, compassion matters more than profit.
I urge colleagues across all parties to support Mark Ruskell’s bill at stage 1 this afternoon and to stand on the right side of history and the side of humanity.