Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands briefing for Rural Affairs and Islands Committee Session on Salmon Farming in Scotland: EIR release

Information requested

The disclosure of some information that was not released under a previous EIR (reference: 202400401569) and published on the Scottish Government website on 5 September 2024 Ecocide & fish farm briefing packs provided to Ministers: EIR release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Your request relates to Enclosure 03, which was a Briefing Pack with a number of Annexes for the Cabinet Secretary’s appearance at the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee Session on Salmon Farming in Scotland on 10 May 2023. You highlighted in your request that several of the Annexes in response to EIR 202400401569 had been redacted as they were out of scope. Specifically you have requested copies of those listed below:

Annex H: [Redacted - out of scope]

Annex I: [Redacted - out of scope]

Annex K: National and Regional Marine Plans

Annex L: Aquaculture: Moratoriums [Redacted - out of scope]

Annex M: [Redacted - out of scope]

Annex N: [Redacted - out of scope]

Annex O: Seal Management at Fish Farms

Annex P: [Redacted - out of scope]

Annex Q: [Redacted - out of scope]

Annex R: [Redacted - out of scope]

Annex U: [Redacted - out of scope]

Annex V: Letter from 4 MSs on the regulatory review [ Fergus Ewing, Donald Cameron, Rhoda Grant, Beatrice Wishart]

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 most of the information you requested. Please find attached the relevant Annexes H, I, L, M, N, P, Q, R, and U from the Briefing Pack.

Some of the information you have requested is already available from the published EIR (reference: 202400401569) response on the Scottish Government website - Ecocide & fish farm briefing packs provided to Ministers: EIR release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot):

• Annex K: National and Regional Marine Plan and Annex O: Seal Management at Fish Farms were released under Enclosure 03 as part of the response to 202400401569.
• Annex V: Letter from 4 MSPs on the regulatory review [Fergus Ewing, Donald Cameron, Rhoda Grant, Beatrice Wishart] was released in full at Enclosure 04 as part of the response to 202400401569.

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.

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 under regulation 11(2) (personal information of a third party) of the EIRs applies to that information. Specifically within Annex U a signature of an individual has been redacted only.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

Additional information provided out with the EIRs

Under regulation 9 of the EIRs (our duty to provide advice and assistance) we would like to advise you that the following additional information was also included in the response to EIR 202400401569, and that for Annex I: Highly Marine Protected Areas,

“Màiri McAllan MSP, then Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition announced to Parliament on 29 June 2023, the decision that the Scottish Government would no longer progress with the proposal as consulted on; to implement HPMAs across 10% of Scotland’s seas by 2026: Meeting of the Parliament: 29/06/2023 | Scottish Parliament Website.  Subsequently, on 7 November 2023, Scottish Government published the analysis and response to the consultation, confirming that HPMAs were not being progressed: Scottish Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) consultation: Scottish Government response - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)”

About FOI

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

EIR 202400431715 - Information released - Annex

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27 page PDF

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699.0 kB