Nuclear waste, Grangemouth Ineos plant and oil and gas licences: EIR release

Information requested

1. All correspondence received and sent by the Scottish Government over the dumping of nuclear waste in Scotland, including internally, and all briefings about this, from the last six months.

2. All correspondence between the UK and Scottish Government about Grangemouth's Ineos plant from the last three months.

3. Could you supply all documentation held by the Scottish Government about new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, including correspondence, briefings, analysis, since April 1 2024?

4. All documentation, including correspondence, briefings and minutes/notes from meetings, about Humza Yousaf's visit to Floating Wind Innovation Centre (Flowic) in Aberdeen, on March 18.

5. On March 20 at the Scottish Parliament, Mairi McAllan said: I noted in my opening answer that we are around halfway to net zero emissions, and the long-term trajectory of decarbonisation is what is most important. We have got there through a combination of measures, not least since we declared the climate emergency, by completing the world’s largest offshore floating wind leasing round and by putting into the ground 75 per cent of all the forests that have been created in the UK in the past five years.
-Could you provide the evidence behind the ScotWind project being one of the reasons behind the 'halfway to net zero' comment.

6. All documentation held by the Scottish Government about the delayed Scottish Government's climate change plan, including correspondence, briefings, analysis, since April 1 2024.

Response

As some of the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Response to your request

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception(s) under Regulation(s)

• 10(4)(a) (Information not Held);
• 10(4)(e) (Internal Communications);
• 10(5)(e) (Commercially Sensitive Information);
• 10(5)(a) (Prejudice to National Security);
• 11 (Personal Information);
• 12(5)(d) (Confidentiality of Proceedings)
• 10(5)(f) (substantial prejudice to interests of person who provided the information)

of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why these exceptions apply to each part of your request are explained in the Annex to this letter.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

EIR 202400416699 - Information released - Annex A & B

File type

103 page PDF

File size

1.2 MB