1 January –
Police Scotland launch a murder investigation following the death of a 38-year-old man who was shot outside an Edinburgh pub shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve. A second man injured during the incident has been taken to hospital.[1] The deceased man is subsequently named as Marc Webley.[2]
3 January – Police say they are "extremely concerned" for the safety of Laura Wilkie, a 43-year-old woman from
Ayr, who has been missing since 18 December 2023.[3]
Police searching for Laura Wilkie find a body at
Rozelle Park in Ayr, close to where she was last seen.[5]
5 January – Fugitive
Nicholas Rossi, wanted in the United States on rape charges, is extradited from Scotland.[6]
6 January – A 32-year-old man and 25-year-old woman have been arrested and charged with murder over the death of Marc Webley on New Year's Eve, police have confirmed.[7]
9 January –
BBC News reports that a ban on American XL bully dogs is likely in Scotland by the end of January.[9]
10 January –
First Minister
Humza Yousaf confirms those in Scotland convicted because of the
Post Office scandal will be cleared following a similar announcement at Westminster for England and Wales, and that he will work with the UK government to bring this about.[10]
It is reported that David Page, the deputy chief officer at
Police Scotland and the force's most senior member of civilian staff, has made a complaint against new Chief Constable
Jo Farrell, doing so within weeks of her arrival.[11]
11 January –
First Minister
Humza Yousaf confirms that the Scottish Government will "in essence replicate" the law in England and Wales banning unlicensed ownership of American XL bully dogs.[12]
Plans are announced for West Town, a
£2
bn 7,000 home development on land near
Edinburgh Airport.[13]
13 January – A 70-year-old woman is charged after a car ran into protesters at a pro-Palestine march in Edinburgh.[14]
14 January – Ramsay El-Nakla, the brother-in-law of
Humza Yousaf, has been charged by police in connection with drugs offences.[15]
James Stockan announces he will step down from the post of leader of
Orkney Islands Council, as well as relinquishing his council seat, after six years in the role.[17]
16 January –
A yellow weather warning is in place for snow and ice for the whole of Scotland.[18]
Lord Advocate
Dorothy Bain, Scotland's most senior lawyer, apologises to victims of the Post Office scandal, saying they were let down by the justice system.[19]
Finance Secretary
Shona Robison confirms that the Scottish Government is to cut at least 1,200 funded university places as they cannot afford to continue paying for additional places created during the
COVID-19 pandemic.[20]
Community Safety Minister
Siobhian Brown announces that Scotland will introduce legislation to ban the sale, breeding and abandonment of American XL bully dogs, replicating the law for England and Wales, at a date to be confirmed later.[22]
Nuns
Sister Sarah McDermott and Sister Eileen Igoe, and carer Margaret Hughes, who mistreated children at
Smyllum Park, an orphanage in Lanark from 1969 until 1981 when it closed, are each sentenced to three years in prison.[23]
Helen Goss, the mother of an eleven-year-old girl from Aberdeenshire with
long COVID, launches legal action against
NHS Grampian for what she says are the health board's "multiple failings" in the care and treatment of her daughter.[24]
26 January – French
Holocaust denierVincent Reynouard, who spent two years on the run in Scotland before being apprehended by police in November 2022, loses his appeal against extradition to France, where he faces charges of inciting hatred and denying the occurrence of the Holocaust.[29]
28 January – The
Met Office records a provisional peak temperature of 19.6°C (67.3°F) at
Kinlochewe in the
Scottish Highlands, setting a new record for January temperatures in the area.[30]
Engineers begin four days of work to install netting above the railway at
Ratho to prevent potential rockfall, causing disruption to Central Belt railway services while the work is carried out.[32]
Robert O'Brian and Andrew Kelly are to appeal against their sentences for the murder of Caroline Glachan.[33]
31 January – The Scottish Government confirms it will introduce a ban on the sale and exchange of
American XL bully dogs from 23 February, while a licence to own one will be required from 31 July.[34]
February
1 February –
Scottish Water confirms that water bills will increase by 8.8% from April.[35]
A bus driver, subsequently named as Keith Rollinson, dies in hospital at
Elgin following an assault at a bus station in the town the previous evening. A 15-year-old boy is subsequently arrested and charged with murder.[37]
The
Scottish Information Commissioner, which oversees Scotland's freedom of information laws, launches a probe into the Scottish Government's use of informal messaging such as WhatsApp after "significant practice concerns" were raised by the UK COVID-19 Inquiry.[39]
The
Met Office issues a yellow warning for floods for western and northern Scotland as the country experiences heavy rainfall.[40]
Michael Matheson resigns as Scotland's Health Secretary ahead of the publication of a report into £11,000 of data roaming charges accrued by his Parliamentary iPad. He is replaced by
Neil Gray.[42]
The Scottish Government announces a rise in the minimum unit price for alcohol from 50
p to 65p from April, subject to parliamentary approval.[43]
Edinburgh City Council says that 200 people have been fined since it introduced a ban on pavement parking on 29 January.[44]
10 February –
Police Scotland are investigating 22 deaths that occurred at the Fullarton Care Home in
Irvine, North Ayrshire during the
COVID-19 pandemic. The home was one of the worst affected during the early days of the pandemic.[46]
A man is arrested and charged over several acts of vandalism in Glasgow, including graffiti relating to the Gaza conflict daubed on the city's cenotaph.[48]
13 February – Former NHS worker Tracy Menhinick, who gave a young boy "industrial amounts" of the laxative
lactulose, is found guilty of poisoning the child following a 19-day trial at the
High Court in Aberdeen.[49]
Former footballer
Ciaran Dickson is sentenced to six years in prison by the
High Court in Glasgow for the hit-and-run killing of Aidan Pilkington in September 2021, when he was more than three times over the drink drive limit.[52]
Scotland is to scrap its
Super 6 rugby series and reinstate a national "A team" as part of a comprehensive restructuring programme.[53]
Two men are killed in a road traffic accident involving three cars on the
B9077 in
Maryculter, Aberdeenshire.[55]
20 February –
Heather Woodbridge, aged 29, is appointed as leader of
Orkney Islands Council, becoming Scotland's youngest council leader and the first woman to lead Orkney Islands Council.[56]
The BBC announces plans to reshape the
BBC Scotland TV channel, including axing the hour-long news programme The Nine and replacing it with a 30-minute programme.[57]
22 February –
Argyll and Bute Council votes to raise its council tax by 10%, and rejects the Scottish Government's council tax freeze by doing so.[58]
23 February – The Scottish Government publishes draft legislation proposing a ban on the sale of
disposable vapes in Scotland by 1 April 2025.[59]
25 February – The Scottish Government confirms that Economy Secretary
Màiri McAllan, who is pregnant, will take maternity leave during the summer, becoming the second Scottish Government minister to do so.[61]
26 February –
Police say there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a man whose burnt body was found on a football pitch.[62]
First Minister Humza Yousaf describes council tax rises in Scotland as "unjustifiable".[63]
27 February –
MSPs vote 68–55 in favour of the 2024 Scottish budget, which includes a council tax freeze and 45% and 48% income tax rates for higher earners.[64]
Fergus Ewing loses his appeal against a week-long suspension from the SNP group at Holyrood in September 2023 after he criticised the party leadership.[65]
28 February – Following a trial at the
High Court in Glasgow, Iain Packer is found guilty of the April 2005
murder of Emma Caldwell, a sex worker whose body was found in woods five weeks after she disappeared from Glasgow. Packer, who is also convicted of 32 other offences against women, including rapes and sexual assaults, is sentenced to at least 36 years in prison, the second longest prison sentence to be handed out by a Scottish court.[66]
Inverclyde Council announces an 8.2% raise in council tax, becoming the second local authority to go against the Scottish Government's wish for a council tax freeze.[68]
March
1 March – First Minister
Humza Yousaf announces that his wife, Nadia El-Nakla, is expecting a baby in July, making him the first Scottish First Minister to become a parent while in office.[69]
Police Scotland announces it will no longer investigate every low level crime following the success of a pilot project.[71]
8 March – The creators of Wirdle, a
Shetland dialect version of the
Wordle game, announce the game's withdrawal following legal threats from The New York Times, owners of the original game.[72]
9 March – A Daily Telegraph report alleging a conflict-of-interest involving First Minister Humza Yousaf after the Scottish Government donated £250,000 to the UN agency
UNRWA, which supports Palestinian refugees, is rejected by Yousaf as an "outrageous smear" and a "far right conspiracy".[73]
Creative Scotland launches an investigation into a decision to provide nearly £85,000 of public money for an arts project involving "hardcore" sex performances.[75]
11 March – The driver of a double decker bus is arrested after the vehicle's roof is ripped off after crashing into a railway bridge in
West Lothian. No passengers were aboard the bus at the time.[76]
Mountaineer
Anna Wells becomes the first woman to reach the top of all of Scotland's 282
Munros in one winter season.[80]
15 March – Following trial and conviction at the
High Court in Glasgow, double murderer Peter Duffy is sentenced to at least 30 years in prison for the murder of his wife, Emma Baillie, and brother, John-Paul Duffy, in separate incidents in
Coatbridge in 2022.[81]
17 March –
HMP Kilmarnock becomes the first privately-run prison in Scotland to pass into the ownership of the
Scottish Prison Service after its contract with
Serco comes to an end.[82]
19 March –
Scottish Prison Service director Allister Purdie gives evidence to the
Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry, and apologises to the family of Callum Inglis, who died at
Addiewell Prison during the pandemic, after his family learned of the death through word of mouth before they were told formally by prison authorities.[83]
21 March –
The
Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body confirms that members of Scottish Parliament staff will no longer be allowed to wear
rainbow lanyards, or any other badge or jewellery associated with social issues, while at Holyrood.[84]
The
Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill passes its final vote in the Scottish Parliament. Among measures it introduces is a licensing scheme for land where grouse shooting takes place, and regulations for traps.[85]
Jasmin Paris from Midlothian becomes the first woman to complete the
Barkley Marathons in the US state of
Tennessee, doing so with one minute 39 seconds to spare of the 60-hour cut off.[87]
27 March –
Following a three week hearing at
Edinburgh Sheriff Court, former private school teacher John Brownlee, who worked at the
Edinburgh Academy between 1967 and 1987, is found to have physically abused bos in his charge. He will not face trial though as he was earlier deemed to be medically unfit to do so.[88]
1 April – The
Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, which creates a new crime of "stirring up hatred" relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex, comes into force in Scotland.[92]
2 April –
The Scottish Government publishes a consultation on legislation to ban egg producers from housing chickens in cages in Scotland.[93]
Police Scotland says that comments challenging Scotland's new hate crime law made by the author
J K Rowling are not being treated as a crime.[94]
6 April – Changes to
Income tax in Scotland come into force, with a new "Advanced" rate for those earning over £75,000.[95]
Father and son Ian and Dean McLeod are sentenced to life imprisonment with minimum terms of 34 years for the 2022 murders of Derek Johnston and Desmond Rowlings with the use of a
blowtorch at a flat in Edinburgh.[97]
9 April – Former NHS worker Tracy Menhinick is sentenced to seven years in prison after poisoning a young boy with "industrial" amounts of laxative.[98]
10 April – Police Scotland says it received 7,000 online reports of alleged hate crimes during the first week of new laws enacted by the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act.[99]
11 April – Glasgow is named as a potential host of the
2026 Commonwealth Games following
Victoria's July 2023 decision to withdraw as host because of rising costs.[100]
17 April – MSPs vote to increase the minimum alcohol price by 30% from September, when alcoholic drinks will rise from 50p to 65p per
unit, with the increase in line with inflation.[103]
The Scottish Government scraps its target of achieving Net Zero by 2030, as well as annual and interim targets for reducing greenhouse gases, and instead replaces them with a system measuring emissions every five years.[106]
Following a review of gender services in England,
NHS Scotland pauses the use of
puberty blockers for children in Scotland, while Glasgow's
Sandyford Clinic says 16- and 17-year-olds will need to wait until they are 18 to be prescribed the drugs.[107]
19 April –
At the High Court in Glasgow, Kristofer Johnstone is sentenced to ten years in prison after being convicted of the rape and abuse of two girls between 2003 and 2018.[108]
The
Scottish Greens announce their intention to hold a vote on whether to stay in government with the
Scottish National Party following the SNP's decision to scrap key climate targets.[109]
20 April – BBC News reports that the SNP will form a minority government if the Scottish Greens vote to end their power-sharing agreement.[110]
21 April – A 20-year-old man is charged after a car appeared to drive at pro-independence marchers in Glasgow the previous day.[111]
22 April –
Donna Marie Brand, one of three people convicted of the 1996
murder of Caroline Glachan, is sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 17 years.[112]
John-Paul McLaughlan is sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 17 years after admitting the murder of his partner, Stacey Warnock, who was stabbed multiple times following an argument at the couple's home in December 2022.[113]
NHS Dumfries and Galloway apologises for any anxiety caused by a cyberattack, described as a "targeted and continued incursion", which occurred in March.[114]