Potential disruption in food supply due to Labour’s Autumn Budget: EIR release

Information requested

(1) Has the Food Security Unit given any consideration to the potential disruption in Scotland’s food supply because of Labour’s Autumn Budget?

(2) Please could you share any correspondence to or from the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform, and Islands, Mairi Gougeon, about the disruption of food security or supply in Scotland since 30 October (with particular focus on the impact of the Labour Government’s first budget on agriculture and fishing)?

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.

With regard to your first question:

The Food Security Unit has given consideration to potential disruption in Scotland’s food supply because of Labour’s autumn budget. There have been considerations of the impact of the UK autumn budget across the Scottish Government, with potential implications for aspects of the agrifood system including from changes to Agricultural Property Relief and the increase to employer National Insurance contributions. The Scottish Parliament passed a motion on 13 November calling on the UK Government to urgently commit to undertake and publish impact assessments on the cumulative impact of its budget proposals on farmers and crofters in Scotland.

With regard to your second question:

I identified one piece of correspondence falling within scope of your request which I have included. Please note that I have not considered internal communications to be ‘correspondence.’

An exception applies

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. These exceptions relate to ‘personal data relating to a third party’. Disclosing the personal data would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the UK GDPR. The personal data within the correspondence disclosed has therefore been redacted.

This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’.

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 202400442033 - Information released - Annex

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