Harbour Energy meetings and materials: EIR release

Information requested

Please can the Scottish Government provide minutes of all meetings held between its Ministers and representatives of Harbour Energy since the start of 2025.

This should include briefings prepared ahead of the meetings, any correspondence between the Minister (s) and Harbour Energy staff in the lead up to and aftermath of the meetings, and minutes of the meetings themselves.

This period has been taken as 1 January 2025 to 16 July 2025.

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 enclose a copy of some of the information you requested. We have interpreted your request to include correspondence and documentation (including briefing materials and notes) regarding meetings between Scottish Government Ministers and Harbour Energy; and correspondence between Scottish Government officials and Harbour Energy which included briefing materials intended for Scottish Government Ministers. We have deemed both direct meetings between Scottish Government Ministers and Harbour Energy and other Ministerial engagements, such as roundtables where Harbour Energy were in attendance, in scope of your request.

An exception under Regulation 10(5)(f) [Third Party Interests] of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. This exception applies because disclosure of this information would, or would be likely to, cause substantial prejudice to the interests of a third party (in this case Harbour) who provided information voluntarily to the Scottish Government. This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. The information withheld relates to particular elements of correspondence from Harbour Energy which included briefing material for Scottish Government Ministers and Officials regarding the effects of the Energy Profits Levy (EPL) on the sector and the company’s proposals surrounding the Energy Security Investment Mechanism (ESIM). We recognise that there is some public interest in the release of such information because of potential interest in how Harbour Energy is engaging with Governmental Bodies regarding the EPL and the effect this has had on the job losses Harbour Energy announced in May 2025. However, this is outweighed in these cases by the public interest in preventing harm to the interests of a third party. Harbour Energy was not legally obliged to supply the information to the Scottish Government, has done so in circumstances where it is not otherwise in the public domain and has not consented to it being disclosed.

An exception under regulation 10(4)(e) [Internal Communications] applies to some of the information requested because it relates to internal communications. This exception is subject to the 'public interest test' and, taking into account all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. The information withheld relates to particular elements of briefing materials for Scottish Government Ministers relating to wider energy policy. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception.

An exception under regulation 10(5)(e) of the EIRs [Substantial Prejudice to Confidentiality of Commercial Information] applies to some of the information you have requested. This exception is subject to the 'public interest test' and, taking into account all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. The information relates to particular correspondence between Scottish Government officials and Harbour Energy relating to Harbour Energy stakeholder communications. This exception applies because disclosure of this particular information would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the confidentiality of commercial information provided by the third party and thus cause substantial harm to their commercial interests.

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.

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 202500476205 - Information released - Annex

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PDF

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1.4 MB