Correspondence relating to Park Inn Hotel knife attack in Glasgow: FOI release

Information requested

1. Any and all correspondence between the Scottish Government and Home Secretary, Priti Patel MP, in relation to the knife attack at the Park Inn Hotel in Glasgow on 26 June this year.

2. Any correspondence between the Home Secretary and any Scottish Government Minister in relation to the above event.

3. All correspondence between the Minister for Public Finance and Migration, Ben Macpherson MSP, and the Home Office, in the last two years, in relation to the general issue of immigration.

Response

Attached is a copy of most information you requested.

We are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exemption under Section 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to that information. Section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested because correspondence includes personal information of a third party, for example their name, location or other identifiable information.

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 Scottish Government does not have the information because there are no records of letters having been received from the Home Secretary in relation to the incident at the Park Inn on 26 June and Scottish Ministers have not written to the Home Secretary in relation to this incident.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

The Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government, Aileen Campbell MSP, did write to the Minister for Immigration Compliance and the Courts, Chris Philp MP concerning the incident and received a reply. These letters, dated 2 July and 3 July respectively, were released previously under FOI202000057641 and are available online: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202000057641/

I have also attached a further letter from Ms Campbell to Mr Philp dated 26 August which raises the incident on 26 June in the context of a report to the Home Affairs Select Committee and in support of calls for an inquiry into all issues that led up to the incident on 26 June.

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FOI202000057641 - Information released

File type

83 page PDF

File size

3.9 MB