Regarding Humza Yousaf's meeting with Pakistan Consulate: FOI review

Information requested

You asked for a review of our response to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for:

1. All correspondence (either written in letters or in emails presumably) between Humza Yousaf, his ministerial office at the time and the Pakistan Consul General regarding this meeting. Including correspondence which shows how the matter they met to discuss was first brought up, and how a time to meet, and meeting location was established.
2. Any email or letter written by Humza Yousaf regarding the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill in January 2014.
3. Confirmation of the exact time the meeting took place on February 4th 2014.
4. Any correspondence Humza Yousaf received from Scottish Government colleagu s or people from external organisations regarding the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill in December  2013, January 2014 or the days of February 2014 leading up to the vote.

Response

I have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed with modifications.

In our previous response, we enclosed a copy of some of the information you requested - specifically all the correspondence Humza Yousaf received from Scottish Government colleagues or people from external organisations regarding the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill in December 2013, January 2014 or the days of February 2014 leading up to the vote.

Under section 38(1)(b) (Personal Information) of FOISA, we redacted the name of one Scottish Government official only. No other information was redacted or withheld as a result of section 38(1)(b) (Personal Information) - only personal details (the name of one official below Deputy  Director level) was redacted. We did not use Section 38(1)(b)(Personal Information) of FOISA to withhold any further information relevant to your request.

When reviewing your FOI request, I carried out further searches to identify all information within scope of your request. We found one additional document which I have attached to this correspondence. This is a briefing document on the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill that Mr Yousaf received before appearing on Question Time and I have attached this to my response. As mentioned above, we have redacted the name of one Scottish Government official only under 38(1) (b) of FOISA 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 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.

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 202300348980 Information released

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