Publication - FOI/EIR release

Information pertaining to Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Act 2013: EIR release

Published: 18 October 2021
Directorate: Marine Directorate
Topic: Marine and fisheries, Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/202100226158
Date received: 27 July 2021
Date responded: 23 September 2021

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004

Information requested

1) Correspondence sent and received, between the Scottish Government and representatives of HM the Queen, including the Queen's legal representatives and the Crown regarding the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Act 2013, including but not exclusively on whether any of its clauses required amendment regarding Queen's consent in line with rule 9.11 of standing orders for the Scottish Parliament.

a) Minutes of meetings regarding obtaining Queen's consent to that bill, as above.
b) Internal emails involving Scottish Government officials and ministers regarding seeking and obtaining Queen's consent to that bill and/or internal memos written by or for Scottish Government officials and ministers, as above.

2) Correspondence, sent and received, between the Scottish Government and representatives of HM the Queen, including the Queen's legal representatives, and the Crown regarding the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, including but not exclusively on whether any of its clauses required amendment regarding Queen's consent in line with rule 9.11 of standing orders for the Scottish Parliament.

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 attach the information you requested at Annex A.

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 exceptions under regulations 10(4)(e) (internal communications), 10(5)(d) (confidentiality of proceedings) and 11(2) (personal information) apply. The reasons for applying these exceptions are detailed in Annex B.

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