Fish landings in Scotland since 2021: EIR release

Information requested

Number of fish landed in Scotland from 2021 to the current date, broken down by year and type of fish for each figure.

Response

As 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.

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested in an excel table. This information includes provisional data for 2023 and very provisional and incomplete information for 2024 up to 10 June 2024. Fish are recorded by weight rather than number, so the enclosed table gives the tonnage of fish landed into Scotland by year and main species. The 2023 data will be revised when the final Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 2023 is published in September 2024. The 2024 data was extracted on 12 June 2024 and will include any landings that were in the database on or before that date and related to landings up to 10 June 2024.

The requested information for years 2021 and 2022 is available from table 22 of the supplementary tables to the Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 2022 publication at Supporting documents - Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

 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.

FOI 202400418237 - Information released - Annex A

File type

Excel document

File size

14.8 kB