EIR/202500463282 · FOI/EIR · partially withheld
Documentation held by Transport Scotland regarding Road Tax and Fuel Duty: EIR release
Information requested
1. Could you supply all documentation held by Transport Scotland, including correspondence sent and received, minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis, about road tax, between October 1 2024 and February 1 2025?
2. Could you supply all documentation held by Transport Scotland, including correspondence sent and received, minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis, about fuel duty, between October 1 2024 and February 1 2025?
3. Could you supply all documentation held by Transport Scotland, including correspondence sent and received, minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis, about a Glasgow Airport rail link, between October 1 2024 and February 1 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.
Note your request has been split into three separate asks and information has been provided in separate documents.
Request 1 & 2 (Road Tax & Fuel Duty)
1. Fuel duty and vehicle excise duty, commonly known as “Road Tax” as referred to in your request are fully reserved matters for the United Kingdom Government.
In the period 1 October 2024 and 1 February 2025 searches undertaken have not identified any correspondence, minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis held by Transport Scotland solely regarding these matters. This response, and the associated annex covers both parts one and two of your request, which have been combined to include all references to “Fuel Duty “ and “Road Tax”.
The Scottish Government seeks to engage the UK Government to take a four-nation approach to the reform of motoring taxes, such as Fuel Duty and Vehicle Excise Duty. This position has been outlined in briefings, meetings, and extracts of these within scope of your request are included in Annex A to this response. Where this this material forms part of published documents, links to these have been provided.
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 10(4)(e) (internal communications) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why that exception(s) applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.
Request 3 (Glasgow Airport Rail Link)
1. I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested in Annex B Please note that some of this information is out of scope of the request, therefore has been redacted.
The reasons why we do not have some of the information are explained in the Annex to this letter.
ANNEX
Reasons for not providing information
Request 1 & 2
An exception under regulation 10(4)(e) (internal communications) of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. 10(4)(e) (internal communications) has been applied to internal correspondence between Scottish Government officials to protect their private thinking space while developing policy areas.
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.
We recognise that there is some public interest in information about Fuel Duty and Road tax held by the Scottish Government. However, as outlined, these matters are fully reserved to the UK Government and internal discussions regarding these, if released may cause confusion to the general public and in isolation, present an inaccurate representation of the policy in question which the Scottish Government has no control.
Request 3
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, under regulation 11(2) provides that where the information requested includes personal data about a person other than the applicant and disclosure would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998, the public authority shall not make that personal data available.
In this instance, we consider that to reveal whether the information you have requested exists or is held by the Scottish Government would involve making personal information available about employees of the Scottish Government’ or individuals who have corresponded with the Scottish Government in contravention of regulation 11.
Therefore, personal information in Annex B has been replaced by ‘REDACTED’.
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. 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 10(4)(e) (internal communications) of the EIRs applies to that information.