Communication relating to the UK fishing industry: FOI release

Information requested

1) From January 1st 2020 please provide any emails or letters sent to by the following organisations that relate to the UK fishing industry and the recruitment and employment of non-EEA migrant fishers.

Please provide any Members’ of the House of Commons correspondence (written as well as electronic) with the public authorities covered by this FOI request.

Please provide any requests from the UK fishing industry producer organisations (POs), fish producer associations and / or fishing federations listed below that relate to immigration enforcement for non- EEA migrant fishers on transit visas working on UK fishing vessels.

POs: SWFPO, WFPO, the FPO, EEFPO, NAFPO, Lowestoft FPO, Cornish FPO

Other: North Sea Fishermens Org Ltd, Fishermens Welfare Alliance Fishing federations (SFF, SWFPA, NFFO, ANIFPO)

Associations: Anglo-Scottish Fishermen’s Association, Fife Fishermen’s Association, Fishing Vessel Agents & Owners Association (Scotland) Limited, Mallaig and North-West Fishermen’s Association Limited, Orkney Fisheries Association, Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s Association Limited, Scottish White Fish Producers’ Association, Shetland Fishermen’s Association

2) For the same organisations listed in (1) please provide any emails or letters sent to your department that relate to border force / immigration enforcement activity on February 5th 2022 in Campbeltown (Scotland) in relation to the employment of non-EEA fishers in the fishing fleet.

3) Please provide any emails or letters (between January 1st 2022 and April 1st 2022) requesting a pause on immigration enforcement action.

Response

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

In relation to 1) above, we have interpreted your request as being for correspondence solely relating to the recruitment and employment of non-EEA fishers in the UK fishing industry rather than other matters pertaining to the UK fishing industry.

Four documents that are within scope of both this part of your request, as well as 3) above, are attached with this letter.

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (the personal data of a third party) applies to a small amount of the information you have requested because it is personal data of a third party, e.g. names and contact details of individuals, 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 exemption 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 exemption.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.

The Scottish Government does not hold any information you have asked for in part 2) of your request. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

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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 - 202200301352 - Information release

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