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EIR/202500476233 · FOI/EIR · partially withheld

Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity's briefing materials for the Royal Highland Show 2025: EIR release

Published
2025-08-13
Received
2025-07-16
Responded
2025-07-28
Directorate
Agriculture and Rural Economy Directorate
Topic
Farming and rural, Public sector
Exemptions
20, 39(2)

Information requested

Copies of briefing materials for Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity Jim Fairlie MSP to prepare for his appearance at the Royal Highland Show 2025. I am only requesting materials covering the topics of Road Equivalent Tariff/ the Islands Connectivity Plan.

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 checked the briefing material provided for Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity, Mr Jim Fairlie MSP, to prepare for his appearance at the Royal Highland Show 2025. I can confirm that there was no briefing material that covered the topics of Road Equivalent Tariff/ the Islands Connectivity Plan. As such this is a Nil Return.

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.

Contact Please quote the FOI reference Central Correspondence Unit Email: contactus@gov.scot Phone: 0300 244 4000 The Scottish Government St Andrew's House Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG

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.

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