The Ferret headlines

The UK Government's changes to disability benefits have been criticised by campaigners and politicians in Scotland.

New rules for assessing who can receive the personal independence payment (PIP) were announced by chancellor Rachel Reeves in March, alongside changes to universal credit.

Concerns have been raised about how these policies will impact people in Scotland, which has some control over its social security system.

Ferret Fact Service explains.

What changes have been announced?

More than 3.5 million people are paid the personal independence payment in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The benefit is for those who have a long-term physical or mental health condition.

It is made up of two parts, one for daily living and one for mobility. Claimants are eligible for one or both of the elements and payments are adjusted accordingly.

The UK Government plans to tighten up the eligibility criteria for the daily living part of PIP, and applicants will need to score higher on their assessment than previously. There are also plans for more frequent assessments for many people claiming PIP.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated this will result in about 800,000 people having their benefits impacted, and the changes will come into force in April 2026.

People who receive universal credit could also face changes to their payments. About 7.5 million people across the UK get monthly payments, while some in Scotland get their payments twice a month.

Some people who receive universal credit are not obliged to try and find work due to long-term health concerns, and many people receive a top-up to these benefits to account for this.

The new proposals will mean that incapacity benefit will no longer be available to those under 22, while those claiming the benefit for the first time will receive a smaller payment. The weekly amount will be reduced from £97 to £50, at which level it will be frozen until the end of 2029-30.

People already claiming the health-related top-up will have their payment frozen at the higher rate.

How much control does the Scottish Parliament have over disability benefits?

Some benefits are devolved to Scotland, which means a few of the payments received by Scots are the responsibility of Scottish ministers, who make decisions on changes.

Eleven benefits were devolved after the 2016 Scotland Act came into force. These included the disability living allowance, PIP, attendance allowance and severe disablement allowance.

The UK Government retained responsibility for major benefits including universal credit, child benefit, the state pension and maternity allowance.

How could these changes affect Scottish benefits?

In Scotland, PIP has been replaced by the adult disability payment (ADP), and the changes to PIP announced by the chancellor will not apply in Scotland. Currently there are 433,050 people receiving the adult disability benefit.

While there are a small number of people in Scotland still receiving PIP (because ADP is not fully rolled out), it is expected everyone will be transferred over to adult disability payments by the time the main changes proposed by the UK Government come into force.

The Scottish Government has ruled out making similar changes to those made by the UK Government. The cabinet secretary for social justice, Shirley-Anne Somerville, told a Scottish Parliament committee on 6 March that ministers "do not intend to follow Westminster's approach, because that would be exceptionally detrimental to people who receive those payments and are entitled to them."

Universal credit changes will impact Scotland, as this benefit remains reserved to Westminster.

What about Scotland's budget?

While Scottish ministers have no plans to replicate the UK Government's reforms, there may be a knock-on effect for the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government gets most of its funding each year through a block grant, transferred from the UK Government, which is made up of a proportional allocation ...

Scotland's shipbuilding industry has been back in the spotlight in recent weeks, after the announcement that seven new ferries for Caledonian MacBrayne will be built by a Polish firm instead of a Clyde shipyard.

The contract for seven new small ferries, which will replace existing boats with more modern electric vessels, is part of CalMac's plan to decarbonise its fleet.

Opposition parties argued that the first minister John Swinney had allowed the contracts to go overseas when the nationalised Ferguson shipyard on the Clyde could have built them.

But how was it decided to build the ferries in Poland? And could the Scottish Government have intervened?

Ferret Fact Service explains.

How does the tendering process work?

CalMac is a publicly-owned company, so ferries built for use on its routes are meant to go through a system of public tendering.

This means that Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL), which owns the ferries and land-based assets used by CalMac, puts out a public notice to say it needs a number of ferries to be built, and then private companies bid for the contract to do the work.

The contract for seven new ferries was announced in July 2024, with CMAL initially selecting 12 bidders, including Ferguson.

While the Clyde firm made it onto the final shortlist of six, the contract was eventually handed to Polish firm, Remontowa. The tender is worth £175m and will see seven new "loch class" vessels built to replace ageing boats currently serving routes in Scotland.

Could Ferguson have been directly given the contracts?

When the plan to build seven new vessels was announced, there were calls for the contract to be awarded to the Ferguson yard, in order to help secure its future.

It is possible under certain circumstances for the open tendering process to be bypassed. This is known as a direct award.

Legally there are only very specific cases where this can be used. The Scottish Government gives some examples of how a direct award could be given out, including "extreme urgency due to unforeseen circumstances", "covering the immediate need where there is only one possible supplier", or small modifications to existing contracts.

In an exchange with Labour MSP Claire Baker in the Scottish Parliament, deputy first minister Kate Forbes said that a direct award of the ferries contract to Ferguson "would have introduced substantial risk" that the contract could have been legally-challenged by other shipbuilders. She said it could have led to the "worst of both worlds, with the boats not being delivered to islanders and Ferguson Marine not getting the contract because the matter ended up in the courts".

According to a report by public finance watchdog, Audit Scotland, the small ferries contract went to public competitive tender after "legal advice that a direct award would be in breach of the conditions set out in the UK Subsidy Control Act".

Subsidy control, which was previously called state aid when the UK was part of the European Union, sets rules on how public money can be used. It regulates when a state public authority can and cannot give financial support to an enterprise, giving them an economic advantage.

It is against the law for public money to be spent to give one group or company a competitive advantage over others, unless strict criteria are met.

The UK guidelines state that "subsidies should be given in the public interest" such as to address a market failure.

According to the Scottish Government, legal advice suggested handing the contract directly to Ferguson without an open tendering process would have fallen foul of these rules.

What happened to Ferguson?

The Ferguson shipyard, which has been producing ships on the Clyde since the start of the 20th century, was forced into administration in 2014. It was then taken over by a company owned by Scottish businessman Jim McColl, and renamed Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd (FMEL).

In 2015, it was announced the new company had beaten six other bidders to win a £...

WARNING: THIS REPORT CONTAINS RACIST, ISLAMOPHOBIC AND MISOGYNISTIC CONTENT

A far right group has been condemned for targeting young men after one of its teenage activists posted racist, misogynistic and Islamophobic messages on social media.

The schoolboy - who we are not naming - is a card-carrying member of the Homeland Party.

In one video, the teenager said he has "always been disgusted by mixed race couples and race mixing in general" and claimed white women's attraction to Black or Asian men is "wrong for them and stems from porn addiction and promiscuity".

The 16-year-old also called for pro-immigration politicians to be jailed and in a post on social media, he said that "the idea that we fought the Nazis in an ideological war is extremely damaging and must be refuted".

He also claimed to have been interviewed by a teacher over his political views, suggesting it was at the behest of counter terrorism officers.

The Scottish Greens said the teenager's comments - some of which were posted after he joined Homeland - are "shocking" and it was "deeply troubling to see someone so young sharing such poison and hatred". The party accused "hate groups like Homeland" of targeting "young and disenfranchised people," particularly "boys and young men".

The anti-racism charity Hope not hate claimed Homeland is "leading young men, some of them teenagers, down a dark path, doing potentially irreparable damage to their futures in the process". An expert on the 'manosphere' said "unregulated social media" plays a "big part" in the radicalisation of young men.

Author of slogan cited by white supremacist murderers invited to UK by far right party

The Homeland Party -which offered to coach the teenager in debating skills last September when he was 15 years old - confirmed he was a party member and described him as a "true son of Scotland who is doing his community proud". It added: "We won't throw such young people under the bus for things they've said or done online before they joined us - even when we strongly disagree with them."

Homeland is a far right political party founded by a Scot called Kenny Smith from the Isle of Lewis, who was a candidate for the British National Party, which was condemned for its racism. Smith started Homeland in 2023 after breaking away from another far right group called Patriotic Alternative.

One branch organiser for the party has claimed that roughly 70 per cent of Homeland's members are under 30.

Homeland's Scottish teenage activist became a member of the party in January and supports the mass deportation of immigrants. His political posts date back to when he was 15 years old.

He said in a video that some women are addicted to porn and constantly search for "extreme" sex including "sleeping with a bunch of men", and that "the next thing is eventually gonna be black man." Women enjoy this because it is "perverse" and "kind of dirty", he added.

Referring to an event last month at his school when staff and pupils were encouraged to try on hijabs to celebrate 'World Hijab Day', the 16-year-old wrote on his social media account: "At the same time in England, a school boy was stabbed to death by a foreigner. And just to add salt to the wound, now the Labour government is set on creating a council to 'tackle Islamophobia'. I'm disgusted at the current political and educational system in Britain."

The youth wrote "yawn" in response to prime minister Keir Starmer who said antisemitism is "hatred", and claimed that "our ancestors didn't fight the Nazis so we could get invaded by foreigners and Muslims from the third world instead".

After posting an image of a shanty town alongside a cathedral, he wrote: "The people who built this …are not going to benefit or enrich the culture of a people who built this ."

He also said politics needs to get a "lot nastier" and urged "British people" to "come out fighting". He added: "The only way out of our corrupt political system and to stop the heinous crimes being committed ...

Scottish Limited Partnerships, or SLPs, are a business entity provided for in UK law dating back to the Limited Partnerships Act of 1907.

SLPs differ from limited partnerships elsewhere in the UK as they have "legal personality", which allows them to enter into contracts, and take on debts or own property. In a limited partnership in England and Wales or Northern Ireland, this is done by the partners.

For this reason, SLPs are attractive entities for companies engaged in illicit or secretive activities. Firms can establish a legitimate foothold in the UK while obscuring their operations through partners located in "secrecy jurisdictions".

They have been linked with money laundering, internet fraud, and one of the worst bank robberies in recent history.

Timeline

December 2014

The Great Moldovan Bank Robbery

It emerges that $1bn vanished from three of Moldova's leading banks. Much of the money passed through UK companies, according to a report by the private international investigation agency Kroll. Read more

June 2015

Flat in Edinburgh housing estate revealed to be home to hundreds of firms

The Sunday Herald reveals that 438 companies were registered to a modest flat in Pilton, a housing estate made famous by Irvine Welsh's 1993 novel, Trainspotting. Some were owned by offshore vehicles in "secrecy jurisdictions" such as Seychelles and some were accused of involvement in the Moldovan bank fraud. Read more

July 2016

SLPs are reported to be marketed to customers in Latvia, Ukraine and Russia

These "off-the-shelf" Scottish firms prompt fears that SLPs are being used for money-laundering and tax evasion in the former Soviet Union, according to The Herald's reporting. Read more

December 2017

Investigators say nearly $3bn was launded from banks in Moldova

Much of the "dirty cash" was funneled through anonymous Scottish and UK shell firms, according to US-based private detective agency, Kroll. Read more

April 2018

The UK Government accounces a crackdown on SLPs

The move comes after a review by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) found that Scottish entities had been used to move $80bn from Russia in just four years. Read more

October 2021

Edinburgh firm linked to Ukranian mafia embezzlement

The Ferret revealed that two addresses in Edinburgh were listed as the official headquarters for thousands of businesses, including one linked to a Ukranian corruption case. Many were created by companies registered in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands or Seychelles. Read more

June 2022

Dozens of Scottish firms linked to UN sanctions target

The firms registered at an Edinburgh address involve a man linked to a gas tycoon blacklisted by the UK Government for aiding Russa's occupation of Ukraine, the Ferret found. Read more

March 2023

Only three SLPs formed by residents of Scotland

An analysis by The Ferret of all 631 SLPs created during 2022 showed that only three were registered by Scotland residents. Most were registered to companies based in the UK, but nearly two hundred were registered to "secrecy jurisdictions" like Switzerland, the United States, Seychelles, and the United Arab Emirates. Read more

October 2023

UK regulation intented to curb abuse of limited partnerships becomes law

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA) aims to deliver reforms on tackling economic crime and improving transparency over corporate entities.

March 2024

Scottish firms continue to be linked with fraud and accusations of tax evasion and collusion with Russia

The Ferret reports on one SLP registered in Granton, Edinburgh used by the self-styled "King of Fraud" to hoard much of the ill-gotten gains of an internet fraud scheme. Another SLP in Glasgow is linked to a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch wanted for tax evasion. Read more

The Ferret is an independent, investigative journalism cooperative dedicated to holding power to account. Since 2015, we have reported on corruption, environmental...

"He works on the night shift and is probably asleep," says an elderly woman as she walks past us and opens the door to her ground floor flat.

She's referring to her neighbour across the landing whose front door has empty beer bottles outside, and a large bag of garden fertiliser on the doormat. We knock on the door. No response. We wait a few moments and chap again. Still nothing.

The Ferret is in Edinburgh on a dank winter's day trying to track down a 'company' linked to an international money laundering scandal - involving an estimated £770m. We're in Muirhouse to be precise, a housing estate in Scotland's capital made famous by its favourite son, Irvine Welsh, who immortalised the working class area in his 1993 novel, Trainspotting.

Royston Mains Street is our second stop today. We drove here after doorstepping another nondescript tenement flat, a few minutes drive away in Granton Crescent, also in Muirhouse. There was no-one there either, nor any sign of the 'company' we're investigating which is registered as a Scottish Limited Partnership (SLP), a legal entity under UK law.

There are 1,156 SLPs registered at this address.

SLPs date back to the Limited Partnerships Act of 1907. They are used by thousands of legitimate businesses - but some have been used by money launderers, tax evaders and fraudsters, prompting calls for reform to laws to crackdown on criminality. SLPs are easy to set up and can hold assets and enter into contracts, which helps to obscure ownership and facilitate activities like money laundering.

They've been of interest to The Ferret for some years now. In 2023, for example, we found that only three out of 631 SLPs had been formed by residents of Scotland. Two years prior, we revealed that a couple of Edinburgh addresses had been cited as the official headquarters for businesses that use opaque financial structures linked to alleged money laundering and tax abuse.

Now, as part of our finance project, The Money Trail, SLPs are in sharp focus again.

In Edinburgh, the SLP we're trying to track down is called Octmedia and its registered address is the top floor flat we visited in Granton Terrace. We want to speak to the people behind this SLP because it was used to launder money generated in an international scam co-run by a man who called himself the "King of Fraud".

According to court documents seen by The Ferret, Octmedia was used to hoard much of the ill-gotten gains of an internet fraud scheme. The operation saw fraudsters set up advertising companies to sell online ads, and charge clients proportionate to the number of views the ads received. They also generated millions of artificial views from 650,000 IP addresses that were leased.

The conmen infected 1.7 million computers with malware, which covertly accessed the internet to generate ad views. Their complex scheme was powered by 1,900 computers that were rented from a Texas data centre and used remotely to post ads onto 5,000 spoof websites.

In November 2021, Aleksandr Zhukov, the self-described "King of Fraud" who helped set up two ad networks in 2014, was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison in the US. Two other individuals pleaded guilty. While the court indictment refers to revenues of £28m generated by the fraud, some estimates put the total at £770m.

Our investigation found that Octmedia was founded in 2016 by two firms based in the Seychelles - a so-called 'secrecy jurisdiction' where company owners can eschew public registers. The following year, new UK regulations made it mandatory for SLPs to disclose their owners.

But Octmedia simply named another SLP, Johnson and Brothers LP, as its owner - a legal loophole used to avoid disclosing the names of individuals. Johnson and Brothers - also registered at the Granton Terrace flat as a SLP - was itself owned by a pair of Seychelles companies during the fraud operation.

However, leaked Pandora Papers files, obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and ...

For the past year, The Ferret has been working on a major project investigating finance called The Money Trail, and the next part of our series will be published on Sunday with more to come that week.

From dark money, to Scottish Limited Partnerships, to the controversial ownership of land and property, Scotland plays host to a range of illicit finance risks.

So, scrutiny is vital to ensure that money does not flow to Scotland's politics without careful monitoring, and that individuals, companies and states from around the world cannot store their wealth and dirty money in Scottish land, property and companies without it being a matter of public record.

Lifting the lid on illicit finance issues requires rigorous investigative journalism, and despite legal threats we've published more than a dozen investigations to date.

Land, property, and lots of money

As part of our investigation series, we vetted hundreds of offshore-owned properties with foreign owners, unmasking landowners including a Cairngorms businessman linked to an £800m money laundering and fraud scam, and a Canadian government body with an alleged history of tax avoidance.

Using leaked Paradise Papers files, made available to The Ferret by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, we revealed that the top political donor to two political parties, senior bankers, a House of Lords peer, and football legend, Ally McCoist, were among secret owners of a tax haven firm behind an elite Scottish golf club.

The story prompted renewed calls from campaigners for the UK Government to force overseas British territories to provide public registers revealing the beneficial owners of firms registered there.

We also unveiled the offshore firms, politicians, and billionaires who received hefty taxpayer forestry handouts. They included the King, J.K. Rowling, and some who have broken rules around public subsidies. The top recipient was a Guernsey resident whose spouse admitted leaving the UK for the Channel Isles to avoid tax.

Revealed: The secret owners of elite Scots golf club

Political finance

Ahead of the 2024 UK General Election, we analysed thousands of donation records spanning three years, revealing the funders linked to dark money, tax havens, climate change denial, and the blacklisting of trade unionists.

Post-election, we vetted the business and financial interests of all new MPs, revealing the prevalence of landlords, and highlighting the hypocritical investments of politicians. And for good measure, we scrutinised Scottish members of the House of Lords to find out how much they cost the taxpayer, the amount they've claimed in expenses, and how active each member has been.

Revealed: A quarter of Scots MPs own multiple homes

Scottish Limited Partnerships

Our next two reports will focus on Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLPs) - legal entities that have proven controversial over the past decade. They are used by thousands of legitimate businesses - but some have been used by money launderers, tax evaders and fraudsters, prompting calls for reform to laws to crackdown on criminality.

Our latest investigation into SLP's took us to the west end of Glasgow, and Muirhouse, Edinburgh - a housing estate in Scotland's capital made famous by author and former resident, Irvine Welsh, who immortalised the area in his 1993 novel, Trainspotting.

So, if you want to find out what links working class Muirhouse to the Seychelles and Swiss bank accounts, look out for our special investigation on Sunday.

This work has been made possible by funding from the Joffe Trust. But we want to do more of it so please become a member of The Ferret today and support independent, investigative journalism in the public interest.

Yours,

Billy Briggs and Jamie Mann

The Ferret is an independent, investigative journalism cooperative dedicated to holding power to account. Since 2015, we have reported on corruption, environmental issues, human rights, and political influence in Scotland. Our w...

Salmon farms across Scotland have lodged 210 appeals against controls on lice infestations imposed by the Scottish Government's environment watchdog, prompting outrage from campaigners.

The appeals are the latest and most dramatic move in the multinational salmon industry's long-running campaign to block lice controls being introduced by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) to protect wild fish.

According to Sepa, the sea lice that often plague caged salmon can spread to wild salmon and trout as they swim by, and kill them. This is disputed by salmon farming companies.

Campaigners accused the companies of showing "utter contempt" for regulation, and of having "effectively sabotaged" lice controls. They called on consumers to boycott farmed salmon, and for ministers to halt any growth in the industry.

The salmon industry insisted that Sepa's controls would have an "unacceptable" impact on business and "will not work". It had "no alternative" to making the appeals but regretted having to do so, it said.

The Scottish Government said it was working with Sepa to "consider any implications" of the appeals. Sepa promised to continue to implement sea lice controls "to ensure environmental protection".

After two inquiries by the Scottish Parliament in 2018, the Scottish Government set up a working group involving salmon companies to consider the impact of lice. In 2021, that resulted in ministers appointing Sepa to manage the problem.

Sepa conducted two consultations in 2021 and 2023, and in 2024 started introducing a scheme for controlling lice numbers at individual farms. It was "a risk targeted and evidence-led approach to protecting salmon and sea trout from sea lice from fish farms," Sepa said.

The Ferret revealed in December 2024 that salmon farms were refusing to provide Sepa with information on numbers of fish and lice. We reported earlier that the salmon industry had lobbied ministers against the controls nine times in 2023.

Fish farming companies under fire for information breaches

Now it has emerged that salmon companies have appealed against Sepa's statutory notices seeking to limit lice numbers at nearly every farm in Scotland. In a footnote to a response to a third inquiry by the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government said on 13 March 2025 that 210 appeals had been received by its Department of Planning and Appeals.

"In the coming weeks officials will work with Sepa to consider any implications for this year's work plan," the government added. There are fears that the number of appeals could significantly delay the introduction of lice controls.

"Attempts to strengthen necessary controls on fish farm sea lice numbers within a new improved Sepa risk assessment framework already look to be effectively sabotaged," said professor Andrew Watterson, an expert on environmental regulation from the University of Stirling.

"It appears the framework is being overloaded, if not destroyed, by the very large number of appeals against Sepa about limits on sea lice numbers from multinational companies."

He added: "As a strategy for gaining public and regulatory confidence in what they do, the industry's welter of appeals against reasonable regulation looks seriously misplaced."

Salmon industry shows 'utter contempt' for Sepa

The campaign group, WildFish, warned that the salmon farming lobby held "far too much power" over ministers and regulators. "The recent legal appeals by the salmon farming industry lay bare the utter contempt this industry shows for MSPs, regulators and anyone who dares try to curb its polluting operations," said the group's Scotland director, Rachel Mulrenan.

"The industry claims to be the best regulated in the world, and yet takes legal action against any attempts to implement regulation," she told The Ferret.

"This latest development must be a wake up call. It's time to step away from farmed salmon - as consumers, and as a nation."

The Green MSP Ariane Burgess described the conditions in Scot...

The Ministry of Defence has been accused of trying to avoid responsibility for cleaning up a military nuclear site on the north coast of Scotland by making it "someone else's problem".

The Ferret can reveal that discussions to transfer ownership of Vulcan, a former submarine reactor testing site next to Dounreay in Caithness, to the UK and Scottish governments' Nuclear Decommissioning Authority are at an advanced stage. The aim is to complete the deal in 2027-28.

But no decision has been taken on who will pay for the site's multi-million pound clean-up, including dismantling and disposing of two defunct, radioactive reactors. Unlike some civil nuclear sites, military sites do not have any funding set aside for decommissioning.

Campaigners are concerned that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) could escape paying for the pollution it has caused at Vulcan and other military sites. They are demanding transparency, and calling on the Scottish Government to block any "backroom transfer" that undermines Scotland's interests.

The 26-strong UK group of nuclear-free local authorities is planning to raise the issue with UK nuclear minister, Lord Hunt, at a meeting on 31 March. It will be urging him to extract a promise from the MoD to fully fund the decommissioning of Vulcan.

The MoD promised to deliver "value for taxpayers' money" on the Vulcan clean-up. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said financing would be agreed with the UK Government "as part of the usual funding process".

Secrecy over radioactive pollution from nuclear bases

Construction work at Vulcan began in 1957, with one reactor operational from 1965 to 1984, and another from 1987 to 2015. They were used for onshore testing of five different designs of reactors to power the UK nuclear submarine fleet.

In 2012 the second Vulcan reactor suffered a mishap, and started leaking radioactivity into its cooling water. When the leak was disclosed two years later, it triggered a bitter argument between the Scottish and UK governments.

The then first minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, accused the Conservative UK defence minister, Philip Hammond, of deception. Hammond had told MPs that there had been "no measurable change in the radiation discharge" from Vulcan.

But an investigation by the Sunday Herald revealed that there had in fact been a tenfold rise in emissions of radioactive gases. Hammond subsequently corrected the official parliamentary record.

Discussions to transfer responsibility for cleaning up the Vulcan Naval Reactor Test Establishment from the MoD to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) began in 2022. Now, reports released by the Scottish Government under freedom of information law have disclosed how much progress has been made.

An update in January 2025 said that arrangements for the transfer were "moving ahead at full speed". They would be put in place "during the financial year 2027-28".

The update added: "The decommissioning of Vulcan and the optimised management of the waste will serve as the exemplar for decommissioning the UK's nuclear submarines."

There are seven defunct nuclear submarines awaiting decommissioning at Rosyth in Fife and a further 15 at Devonport in Plymouth. Other MoD nuclear sites in Scotland that may eventually need to be cleaned up are the Faslane nuclear submarine base and the Coulport nuclear weapons depot on the Clyde near Helensburgh.

The Scottish Government reports, however, have little to say about how the Vulcan clean-up will be paid for. According to another January 2025 update, a paper on "post-transfer funding options" was "being socialised" within the NDA - though it is unclear what this means.

The costs of decommissioning the more recent civil nuclear power stations, including Hunterston B in North Ayrshire and Torness in East Lothian, will be covered by the UK Government's Nuclear Liabilities Fund. It has secured more than £20 billion from private power companies.

But there is no equivalent fund for cleaning up mil...

A grieving family is planning to sue Addiewell - Scotland's only private prison - for negligence after their beloved son and brother died alone in his cell at just 22-years old while waiting for mental health support.

Jordan Burns made multiple suicide attempts in the ten months he spent on remand in Addiewell facing charges of assault.

While inside, Jordan's attempts on his own life included trying to jump from a landing and setting fire to his cell. He had several drug overdoses and had to be resuscitated twice.

In one harrowing incident just weeks before his death he took a razor blade to his throat and called his then-solicitor, threatening to kill himself. He told the lawyer he had been waiting for mental health support for months.

When he died on 10 November 2023 he had not been given medication for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) previously prescribed, or been treated for his mental health issues.

His mother, Janice Burns, says the prison - which is partly owned and run by private company Sodexo - "served a death sentence" on her son. An additional 67 per cent of the private jail is owned by Infrastructure Investment Holdings, an arm of London investment firm, HICL Infrastructure.

With the support of human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar, Janice is planning to take legal action against the prison.

Politicians including the local SNP MSP called for the Scottish Government to investigate the facts surrounding his death and campaigners said the mandatory fatal accident inquiry into Jordan's death, caused by a drug overdose, must be held urgently.

Sodexo said their thoughts were with the family. Lothian and Borders NHS, which provides healthcare in the prison, claimed that it was "committed to ensuring all prisoners have access to timely mental health services".

Last year there were a record 64 deaths in Scottish prisons with the average age of those who died being just 49. Jordan was one of 40 people who died in jail in 2023.

"His cries for help were ignored," Janice said. "They took my boy's life before it had even started. He was sent to Addiewell on remand, was there for almost a year and when he came home to me it was in a box.

"This has happened to too many people. I just want to help change things so no other young boy or family has to go through this."

She asked not to be identified in the picture we took to protect her younger children. But she wanted to share the pictures of Jordan that fill her home - a beaming little boy in his over-sized, first school uniform, a more pensive young man hugging the family dog. In one of his mother's favourites his arm is around his youngest brother, still just six.

Burns admits her son was no angel and had troubled teenage years which led to a criminal record. "But he was loving and funny and smart", she told us and adored by his siblings and friends.

Results from the post mortem concluded he died of a drug overdose but it cannot answer Janice's question about her son's intentions that night. She is certain of two things though. "My son didn't deserve to die," she said. "And his death was preventable.

Janice and her lawyer claim Jordan had previously been on the prison "Talk to Me" suicide prevention strategy but he was not on the programme when he died.

"I feel like someone has ripped my heart out," she added. "Someone there could have helped him. But nobody did. Instead he was punished." Nobody in authority called to tell her what was happening, she claims.

After Jordan died she says prison officers came to her home to give her the news - delivered in front of her other children. But they stayed just 15 minutes and couldn't tell her what happened.

When Janice phoned the prison she claims she was told she couldn't see what officers referred to as "the body" until Jordan was in the mortuary. But she was given the wrong details for the morgue, which left her calling others to find him without success. She only managed to view J...

An Israeli company linked to a major Conservative Party donor faced enforcement action over its peat extraction operations in Scotland, The Ferret can reveal.

The multinational Israel Chemicals Limited (ICL) mined peat for compost until recently at Nutberry Moss, in Dumfries and Galloway.

The firm was supposed to restore the site after its work finished but Dumfries and Galloway Council issued an enforcement notice against ICL because of its "failure" to put in place funding to do so.

Peatlands have been described as "Scotland's rainforests" because of the large quantities of carbon stored and they are important in the fight against climate change.

In Scotland, they store 1.7 billion tonnes of carbon, equivalent to 140 years' worth of our total annual greenhouse gas emissions. But when peat is extracted carbon is released into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

Documents obtained by The Ferret show the council issued an enforcement notice against ICL in February 2024, in response to its "breach of planning control."

Specifically, the council said ICL had "fail to comply" with requirements in the planning application to provide a financial guarantee to cover the cost of restoring the site, estimated at £1,000 per hectare, and submit full details of it to the council for approval.

Planning officers deserve credit for their dogged determination in pursuing ICL but you can't 'put right' the loss of one of the world's most precious habitats and a valuable carbon store.

Laura Moodie, a spokesperson for the Scottish Greens in Dumfries and Galloway.

This, the council said, was necessary "to ensure financial viability for the post-extraction restoration and aftercare of the site."

A deadline of 16 May 2024 was set for compliance. However, in response to a freedom of information request by The Ferret, the council said "the enforcement notice has not yet been complied with by the developer" - more than seven months after the deadline.

Peat extraction at the site has now stopped, and "the operators are working with our council to get the site restored," the local authority added.

However, at time of writing, the council had not confirmed whether ICL had provided evidence that financing for the restoration had been put in place.

When contacted by The Ferret, ICL confirmed that peat extraction has ended at Nutberry Moss, but declined to comment further.

ICL's largest shareholder is Israel Corporation Limited, 51 per cent of which is owned by billionaire Conservative donor, Idan Ofer.

One of Ofer's companies, Quantum Pacific UK Corporation, reportedly made a £10,000 donation to the Tories in 2019, as well as two £35,000 donations to Robert Jenrick's bid to lead the party in 2024.

The Ferret first reported on alleged breaches of planning permission at Nutberry Moss in October 2022. However, the council did not take enforcement action against ICL until last year.

ICL's permission to extract peat from the site expired in November 2024.

Peat extraction plans for Nutberry Moss rejected by Dumfries and Galloway Council

A spokesperson for Dumfries and Galloway Council told The Ferret: "We are currently working directly with the site operators. This is ongoing work, but we are making positive progress. Peat extraction has now ceased and the operators are working with our council to get the site restored."

Alistair Whyte, head of the campaign group Plantlife Scotland, said he welcomed the council's "determination to hold ICL to account" in restoring the peatland at Nutberry Moss. Calling on the Scottish Government to end peat extraction, he added: "But this is another case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted - it's time to call a halt to the damage and destruction caused by peat extraction in the first place."

Peatland campaigner Dr Janet Moxley said it was "concerning" if ICL had not complied with the planning condition, claiming this would leave the council "at risk of having to pay for site remediation if the cont...