Scotland Greyhound Racing Ban — Bill Status and Implications

Scotland is moving to criminalise greyhound racing. The Greyhound Racing (Offences) (Scotland) Bill was introduced in the Scottish Parliament on 23 April 2025, and the Scottish Government endorsed the Bill’s general principles on 29 August 2025. If enacted, the legislation would make it a criminal offence to organise, promote or participate in greyhound racing anywhere in Scotland — going further than the Welsh approach by targeting the activity itself rather than just the licensing of venues.

Scotland has no active GBGB-licensed greyhound tracks, which means the Bill addresses unregulated (flapping) racing rather than licensed operations. But the implications extend north of the border and into the wider UK debate about the sport’s future. This guide covers the Bill’s current status, the welfare evidence that underpins it and what it means for greyhound racing across the United Kingdom.

The Bill and Government Position

The Greyhound Racing (Offences) (Scotland) Bill was introduced as a Member’s Bill by Mark Ruskell MSP of the Scottish Greens. Unlike the Welsh legislation, which targets licensed racing through a prohibition framework, the Scottish Bill takes a criminal-law approach: it would create specific offences related to organising, advertising or participating in greyhound racing within Scotland. The penalties would include fines and, for repeat or aggravated offences, potential imprisonment.

The Scottish Government endorsed the Bill’s general principles in August 2025, giving it the political backing necessary to progress through the parliamentary process. This endorsement was significant: it meant the Bill was not merely a backbench initiative but a measure with government support, dramatically increasing its chances of becoming law.

The timing of the Scottish Bill is closely aligned with the Welsh ban, creating a pincer of legislative pressure on greyhound racing from both devolved parliaments simultaneously. The two Bills are distinct in their legal mechanisms — Wales prohibits the licensed activity; Scotland criminalises the activity regardless of licensing — but they share a common motivation: the view that greyhound racing causes harm to animals that cannot be justified by its entertainment or commercial value.

The Bill’s progress has been supported by a broad coalition of animal welfare organisations, veterinary bodies and public opinion. Polling by Panelbase found that 60% of Scottish residents supported ending greyhound racing — a figure marginally higher than the equivalent Welsh support of 57%. The political environment in Scotland, where the Greens hold significant influence as coalition partners, has been particularly receptive to animal welfare legislation, and the Bill fits within a broader pattern of Scottish policy on animal sentience and protection.

SAWC Findings and Welfare Data

The evidence base for the Scottish Bill draws heavily on a report published in February 2023 by the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC). The Commission — an independent advisory body established under the Animal Welfare (Sentience) (Scotland) Act 2022 — conducted a comprehensive review of greyhound welfare in the context of racing and recommended a phased end to the activity in Scotland.

The SAWC report cited UK-wide data from GBGB showing 2,412 deaths and 17,930 injuries among registered racing greyhounds between 2018 and 2021. These figures covered a four-year period and included both on-track fatalities and deaths from racing-related causes occurring away from the track. The Commission concluded that the scale of harm was sufficient to warrant legislative action, noting that the injuries and deaths were a predictable consequence of the activity rather than exceptional incidents.

GBGB has contested the SAWC’s framing, arguing that the Commission’s figures do not adequately reflect the downward trend in injury and fatality rates — the on-track injury rate fell to 1.07% in 2024, the lowest recorded, and the fatality rate halved from 0.06% in 2020 to 0.03% in 2024. The Board’s position is that the trajectory of improvement demonstrates a sport that is becoming measurably safer and that prohibition should not override demonstrable progress. The disagreement is, at its core, about whether a declining rate of harm is sufficient when the absolute numbers remain in the hundreds annually.

The SAWC report also addressed the welfare of greyhounds outside the licensed system. Scotland’s unregulated flapping tracks — which operate without GBGB oversight, drug testing or mandatory welfare reporting — were identified as a particular concern, because the dogs racing at these venues have no regulatory protection at all. The Bill’s criminalisation approach is partly designed to address this gap: by making the activity itself illegal, it covers both regulated and unregulated racing, eliminating the possibility that a ban on licensed tracks would simply push the activity underground.

What It Means for UK-Wide Results and Racing

The immediate practical impact of the Scottish ban on UK greyhound results is limited, because Scotland has no licensed tracks contributing to the GBGB form book. No results will disappear from the national database when the Bill is enacted, and no dogs currently racing in the licensed system will be directly displaced. The impact is, instead, political and precedential.

If Scotland successfully criminalises greyhound racing, it establishes a legal model that campaigners in England could seek to replicate at Westminster. Combined with the Welsh ban, it would mean that greyhound racing is prohibited in two of the UK’s four nations — a situation that would intensify pressure on the English tracks where the entire licensed sport is now concentrated. The narrative that the sport is being legislated out of existence, territory by territory, becomes harder for the industry to counter with each additional jurisdiction that acts.

For the 18 licensed tracks in England and Wales (soon to be 17 if the Welsh ban takes effect), the Scottish Bill reinforces the urgency of the welfare and funding debates that are already reshaping the sport. GBGB’s calls for a statutory levy, its investments in injury reduction and its transparency around data publication are all, in part, responses to the political environment that the Welsh and Scottish bills exemplify. The sport’s ability to demonstrate continued improvement — in welfare outcomes, in data transparency, in regulatory standards — may ultimately determine whether England follows the devolved nations or charts a different course.

For punters, the Scottish ban is a reminder that the regulatory landscape in which results are produced is not static. The form book may look the same from one week to the next, but the political and legislative ground beneath it is shifting. Staying informed about these shifts — not just the numbers in the results data, but the context in which those numbers are generated — is part of engaging with UK greyhound racing as it enters its second century.