Internal communications regarding Super Trawlers: EIR release

Information requested

Sight of, and also the number of, internal government communications with the words ‘supertrawler’, ‘super trawler’, ‘margiris’ appearing in the two periods consisting of December 2020- January 2021 and December 2022-January 2023.

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.

1. I attach a copy of some of the information you requested.

2. Some of the information you have requested is available from the following website: United Kingdom Single Issuing Authority (UKSIA) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

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. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

3. 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. Included in the information withheld under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) are a number of attachments to emails which have been partially released to you under this EIR. The attachments are details of the Margiris vessel tracks for the different time periods specified in the email they were attached to. This information cannot be released as location data is classed as ‘personal data.’

About FOI

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 202300336749 - Information released

File type

17 page PDF

File size

6.4 MB