Scotland Greyhound Racing Bill — The Offences Bill and SAWC Report

Scotland’s approach to greyhound racing regulation targets the sport through an offences framework rather than a direct prohibition, and it is backed by the most detailed welfare evidence base that any UK jurisdiction has produced on the subject. The Greyhound Racing (Offences) (Scotland) Bill, introduced in April 2025, takes a different legislative route from the Welsh ban but arrives at a similar destination: making the practice of greyhound racing effectively unviable within Scottish borders. Welfare evidence meets legislation, and the Scottish model is built on data rather than sentiment.

The bill’s intellectual foundation is the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission report of 2023, a comprehensive assessment of greyhound welfare that concluded the risks associated with commercial racing outweigh the benefits. That report provides the evidential weight that the legislation rests on, and understanding its findings is essential to understanding why the Scottish approach differs from the Welsh one — and why the GBGB’s response has focused on challenging the evidence rather than the political process.

SAWC Findings: The Welfare Case Behind the Bill

The Scottish Animal Welfare Commission published its Report on the Welfare of Greyhounds Used for Racing in Scotland in 2023, and its conclusions were unequivocal. The commission found that racing greyhounds in Scotland reach average speeds of approximately 65 km/h on track, that 86.7% of the UK racing greyhound population is imported from Ireland, and that the commercial pressures inherent in the sport create welfare risks that licensed regulation has not fully eliminated.

The report’s central finding was that where gambling and commercial activity are present, the risks to greyhound welfare outweigh the likely positive aspects, and that on average a greyhound bred for racing in Scotland experiences lower welfare than an average dog in the wider pet population. That conclusion framed greyhound racing not as a sport with welfare problems that can be fixed through better regulation but as an activity whose fundamental structure — breeding for speed, racing for profit, retiring when no longer competitive — creates welfare deficits that are inherent rather than incidental.

The SAWC’s methodology drew on veterinary science, behavioural research, industry data and submissions from both the racing industry and welfare campaigners. The commission acknowledged the improvements made by the GBGB in recent years — declining injury rates, higher rehoming percentages, the Injury Retirement Scheme — but concluded that these improvements, while welcome, did not alter the fundamental welfare assessment. The gap between the welfare of a racing greyhound and the welfare of a pet dog was structural, according to the report, and no amount of incremental improvement within the racing framework would close it entirely.

The report also documented the scale of the Irish import pipeline. The finding that nearly 87% of UK racing greyhounds were bred in Ireland raised questions about the traceability and welfare oversight of dogs before they entered the UK system — a supply chain that falls outside GBGB jurisdiction and is governed by different regulatory standards. The commission flagged this cross-border dimension as a systemic weakness that UK-focused regulation alone could not address.

Bill Progress: Introduction, Government Support and Next Stages

The Greyhound Racing (Offences) (Scotland) Bill was introduced in the Scottish Parliament on 23 April 2025 by Mark Ruskell MSP, a Green Party member with a long-standing interest in animal welfare legislation. The bill proposes to make it a criminal offence to organise, promote or participate in greyhound racing in Scotland, with penalties structured to deter any attempt to continue the sport after the legislation takes effect.

The Scottish Government announced its support for the general principles of the bill on 29 August 2025, a significant political signal that placed the weight of the ruling administration behind the legislation. Government backing does not guarantee passage — the bill must still complete its committee and parliamentary stages — but it dramatically increases the probability that the legislation will become law in some form. The remaining stages involve detailed scrutiny of the bill’s provisions, potential amendments and a final vote in the Scottish Parliament.

The offences model is distinctive. Where the Welsh bill simply prohibits greyhound racing as an activity, the Scottish bill creates specific criminal offences with defined penalties, which gives it a different enforcement mechanism. The Scottish approach implies that greyhound racing is not merely undesirable but harmful to the degree that it warrants criminal sanction — a stronger normative statement than a straightforward prohibition. The SAWC report provides the evidential basis for that normative claim, and the connection between the two — evidence leading to legislation — is deliberate and explicit.

The timeline for completion is advancing. The bill passed Stage 1 on 29 January 2026 in a plenary vote, with the Scottish Government backing the general principles. It has now moved to Stage 2 for detailed committee scrutiny. If the bill progresses at a pace consistent with government-backed legislation in the Scottish Parliament, it could receive royal assent during 2026 or early 2027. The implementation provisions would then determine when the offences take effect, with a transitional period likely to mirror the Welsh model of one to three years between enactment and enforcement.

Wales vs Scotland: Two Devolved Routes to the Same Question

The Welsh and Scottish bills address the same question — should greyhound racing be legal? — through different legislative mechanisms, and the contrast is instructive. Wales chose a straightforward prohibition: the activity is banned, and that is the end of the matter. Scotland chose an offences framework: the activity is criminalised, and the SAWC report provides the welfare evidence that justifies treating it as conduct warranting criminal sanction. Both routes lead to the same practical outcome — no greyhound racing within the jurisdiction — but the Scottish approach anchors the prohibition in a scientific evidence base that the Welsh bill does not require.

The different approaches reflect different political cultures. The Senedd’s majority for the Welsh ban was built primarily on ethical and political grounds — a progressive statement about Welsh values. The Scottish Parliament’s approach, influenced by the SAWC report, frames the issue as a matter of evidence-based welfare policy. The GBGB has found the Scottish model harder to challenge, because the SAWC report is a detailed, peer-reviewed document that engages directly with the industry’s own welfare data — and concludes that the data, while showing improvement, does not demonstrate that racing greyhounds experience acceptable welfare outcomes.

For the English circuit — where Yarmouth and the other 17 licensed stadiums operate — the twin legislative developments in Wales and Scotland create a political encirclement. England has no current plans for similar legislation, and the UK Culture Secretary has said so explicitly. But two of the three devolved or semi-devolved nations within Great Britain moving to ban the sport within their borders shifts the political centre of gravity. The GBGB’s strategy of demonstrating welfare progress and defending the sport’s social contribution now operates in a context where two neighbouring jurisdictions have decided that the progress is not enough.

The practical effect on English racing is indirect but real. If Scotland follows Wales in banning the sport, the UK greyhound circuit becomes an English-only enterprise, concentrated in a single jurisdiction and more politically exposed than a circuit that spans three nations. Yarmouth’s races will continue regardless — the track’s licence, its commercial partnerships and its fixture list are unaffected by devolved legislation in Cardiff or Edinburgh. But the industry context in which those races take place is changing, and the centenary year of 2026 arrives with the sport defending its right to exist in two of the three nations where it has historically operated.