Sea Fisheries (Amendment) Regulations 2026 - Spurdog and Seabass National Marine Plan assessment query: EIR release

Information requested

Can you share the assessment done against the NMP for this? I note in particular that spurdog are a PMF so will trigger Gen Policy 9b so am particularly keen to understand that element, as well as the Sea Fisheries section relating to Fully Documented Fisheries, ecosystem etc.

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 have included a copy of the assessment of the Insertion of and Amendment to Licence Conditions for the Maximum Size for Spurdog at Annex A.

After reviewing the assessment, we have concluded that an exception under Regulation 11(2) – Personal Data – applies to some of the information requested.

Information has been redacted under Regulation 11(2) - Personal Data, as it contains personal information and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 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.

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EIR 202600510258 - Information released - Annex A

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