EIR/202500494405 · FOI/EIR · partially withheld
Meetings between Scottish Government and representatives of ExxonMobil to discuss Mossmorran Industrial Complex: EIR release
Information requested
1) How many times have Scottish Government Ministers met with representatives of ExxonMobil to discuss Mossmorran Industrial Complex in the last 3 years.
2) In relation to (1), if meetings occurred, please confirm which Ministers were involved, who else attended the meetings, the date of the meetings, and any minutes taken at each meeting.
3) How many times have Scottish Government Ministers met with representatives of trade union bodies representing workers at Mossmorran Industrial Complex in the last 3 years.
4) In relation to (3), if meetings occurred, please confirm which Ministers were involved, who else attended the meetings, the date of the meetings, and any minutes taken at each meeting.
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.
Response to your request
The answer to your first two questions is that the Scottish Government Ministers have met with representatives of Exxonmobil to discuss the Mossmorran Industrial Complex twice in the three years to 18 November 2025. You will find minutes of both meetings, including attendees attached alongside this response.
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 an exception under Regulation 13(1) (personal data) and 10(5)(e) (confidentiality of commercial information) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations (EIRs) applies to that information. The reasons why that exception applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.
With regard to your request in points 3 and 4, in our initial response issued on 18 December 2025 we advised that no meetings with unions had taken place, with this conclusion based on the fact that the directly employed workforce were non-unionised. However, contracted workers at the site were unionised and it was the potential meetings with those workers which merited reviewing our initial response.
Looking again at question 3, and upon reviewing engagements between Ministers and trade unions representing contracted workers at the Mosmorran site (Unite and GMB as well as the STUC) in the 3 years to 18 November 2025, we identified over 50 such meetings. This is confirmed by the publicly available Ministerial engagements lists which you can access here: Ministerial engagements, travel and gifts - gov.scot. 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 listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.
As this is a large number of meetings and your overall enquiry seemed focused around Mossmorran, in reconsidering question 4, we have applied the following interpretation:
How many times have Scottish Government Ministers met with representatives of trade union bodies representing workers at the Mossmorran Industrial Complex in the last three years, where the matters discussed related to workers at the Mossmorran Industrial Complex or to issues concerning Mossmorran?
Of the above noted meetings only one falls within scope of this interpretation, a meeting between the Deputy First Minister and representatives of Unite and GMB. You will find minutes of this meeting attached alongside this response.
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 an exception under Regulation 13(1) (personal data) and 10(5)(e) (confidentiality of commercial information) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations (EIRs) applies to that information. The reasons why that exception applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.
Annex
An exception applies under Regulations 13(1) and 10(5)(e) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs) applies to some of the information you have requested. These exceptions apply because: • The information contains personal data relating to third parties and Scottish Government officials, and disclosure would contravene the data protection principles set out in the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018; and • Disclosure would, or would be likely to, substantially prejudice the confidentiality of commercial or industrial information, where such confidentiality is protected by law to safeguard a legitimate economic interest.
Specifically, this applies to:
• The name of an attendee from the Scottish Government and points 15 and 17 in the minutes of the meeting between the Deputy First Minister and ExxonMobil on 17 November 2025. • The names and job titles of certain third-party attendees, names of Scottish Government attendees; and several points within the body of text contained in the minutes of Ms Martin’s visit to Mossmorran on 19 March 2024. • The name of an attendee from the Scottish Government and several third-party attendees; and several points in the body of text contained in the minutes of the meeting between the Deputy First Minister and Unions on 18 November 2025.
The exception under Regulation 13(1) 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.
The exception under Regulation 10(5)(e) 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. We recognise that there is some public interest in release because of interest in transparency of Government. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in maintaining commercial confidentiality relating to engagements between Ministers and Unions.
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.
Detected exemption language
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. The exception under Regulation 10(5)(e) is subject to the ‘public interest test’.