Connected parties employed by MPs and total employment costs

Request

I would like to request, under freedom of information laws,

  1. the total number of MPs employing connected parties

  2. the total number of connected parties employed by MPs

  3. total annual pay to connected parties

all as of March 29, 2016.


Response

IPSA holds the information that you request.

Under the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (‘the Scheme’), Staffing Expenditure may only be claimed for the salary of one employee who is a connected party, unless an MP employed more than one connected party on 7 May 2010. You can find a full copy of the Scheme on our website, by following this link.

For the purposes of the Scheme, a connected party is defined as:

  1. a spouse, civil partner or cohabiting partner of the member;

  2. parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece of the member or of a spouse, civil partner or cohabiting partner of the member; or

  3. a body corporate, a firm or a trust with which the MP is connected as defined in section 252 of the Companies Act 2006.

As at the most recent available date (5 April 2016), there were 139 connected parties employed by 139 MPs. The total annual sum of these employees’ gross pay[1] is £3,423,808.76.

[1] This figure excludes national insurance costs.

Ref:
CAS-45573
Disclosure:
25 April 2016
Categories:
MPs' STAFFINGMPs' CONNECTED PARTIES
Exemptions Applied:
None