Details of claims made during prorogation

Request

This relates to the days when parliament was not sitting between 9 September 2019 and 25 September 2019.

Please include the following information relating to the reconvening of parliament:

  • Payments made to MPs to return to London. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:

  • Flights to and within the UK;

  • Train travel either to the UK or to London;

  • Private car, motorcycle and bicycle mileage allowance to London;

  • Taxis to or within London.

  • Cancellation fees claimed by MPs for holiday accommodation during the above dates.

  • Overnight stays in hotels or similar accommodation in London by MPs on 24 September 2019.

  • Stipends paid to MPs (for example, food allowances).

If any of the above categorisations of payments were made to MPs’ spouses or immediate family members, please also itemise that separately.

Please provide only aggregate figures, rather than payments to individuals members.

Response

I can confirm that we hold some information relevant to your request.

Every two months we publish individual claims made by MPs. These are published four to five months in arrears. Information about MPs’ expenses will, therefore, be published on our website in line with our annual publication policy.

In the top right-hand corner, select the financial year you are interested in. Then select the ‘individual claims’ spreadsheet from the drop-down menu, and download the spreadsheet. This gives you access to the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet may be downloaded as a .csv file and saved in Excel.

Specific categories of claims may be selected by using the filters on the top row or by searching the spreadsheet for specific terms.

Additionally, all MPs have a profile page with information about their expenses broken down into categories, for example, Travel > Own vehicle, etc. Clicking on the ‘i’ to the right of each entry opens a pop-up with more information. Access the A-Z list of MPs.

This is the same information which is published in the main ‘annual publication’ spreadsheet, and may also be downloaded as a spreadsheet for each MP.

As the information requested is due for future publication, it is subject to a refusal notice under section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act. This exemption applies because this information is intended for future publication by IPSA as part of our routine publication schedule. Section 22 is a qualified exemption and requires us to consider the public interest. MPs have a certain amount of time in which to submit their claims and once have been submitted there is then a period of validation and reconciliation, before the information is ready for publication. Information about claims made between December 2019 and March 2020 will be published in July 2020, with remaining information and information on budgets published in November 2020.

In the light of the validation and reconciliation procedure and because IPSA already has a schedule of routinely publishing this information, I find that the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosure at this time.

Ref:
CAS-155520
Disclosure:
15 May 2020
Categories:
GENERAL EXPENSES ENQUIRY
Exemptions Applied:
Section 22