Yousaf calls emergency cabinet meeting as tensions grow between SNP and Greens

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf has called an emergency meeting of the Scottish cabinet amid suggestions his party could be about to end its powersharing agreement at Holyrood.

It comes as there are growing tensions between the SNP, which is the largest party at Holyrood, and the Scottish Greens, who are currently their junior partners in the Scottish Government.

The Greens were angered when the Scottish Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan announced last week the Scottish Government was to ditch a key climate change target.

That, combined with the decision to pause the use of puberty blockers for new patients attending the only Scottish gender identity clinic for children in Glasgow, resulted in the Greens saying last week that they would have a vote on the future of the powersharing deal.

That vote is expected to take place later on in May – but it now appears the SNP could end the Bute House Agreement before that.

The deal, which was signed in 2021 and is named after the official residence of the Scottish First Minister in Edinburgh, brought the Green Party into government for the first time anywhere in the UK.

It gave the SNP a majority at Holyrood when the votes of its MSPs were combined with those of the seven Greens members, and also made Greens co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater junior ministers in the Scottish Government.

Without it the SNP would need to operate as a minority administration at Holyrood.

High-profile figures in the SNP, such as former leadership candidate Kate Forbes and party stalwart Fergus Ewing, have previously called for the deal to be ended.