East Coast franchise: communications with Virgin Trains East Coast:FOI release

You asked to see all communications from the Scottish Government to the operators and predecessors of LNER London North Eastern Railway (ie Virgin Trains East Coast) and the DfT pertaining to LNER operations since 2 July 2016.

In addition you also asked to see all correspondence from Permanent Secretary Scottish Government to DfT and Transport Scotland relating to LNER and predecessors since 3 July 2016.

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.