Information about claims by MPs for utilities in 2021-22

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

Some of the information is subject to a Refusal Notice under section 12 of the FOIA as providing the information would exceed the cost limits, and section 21 of the FOIA, as it is already publicly available in accordance with Section C of IPSA’s Publication Policy.

The rules governing what MPs may claim for are set out in The Scheme of MPs’ Staffing and Business Costs. (the Scheme).

Chapter 4 of the Scheme details the costs which may be claimed under Accommodation Expenditure.

Rules for claiming costs associated with constituency offices are set out in Chapter 6.

MPs may claim utility costs for property registered with us. MPs who stay in rented accommodation can claim for running costs, including utility bills, subject to an overall budget cap. They cannot claim for bills for their private homes, or for things like mortgage payments.

Section 21 – information accessible by other means

As some of the information you have requested is already available on our website, it is therefore exempt from disclosure under section 21 of the FOIA (information accessible to applicant by other means). This means that we do not need to provide you with copies of the information you have asked for.

As part of our annual publication, we routinely disclose the total amount that each MP claims for utility bills. IPSA publishes both the amounts MP’s have claimed on their accommodation utilities and for their office utilities. This information is available on our website via the ‘Search MP by name’ webpage.

To view utility costs claimed for London accommodation

Select the MP, scroll down to ‘Business Cost’, click on ‘Accommodation’ and then select ‘Utilities’.

To view utility costs claimed for offices

Select the MP, scroll down to ‘Business Cost’, click on ‘Office Costs’, then select the drop-down option ‘Utilities’.

Please note that the total amount is compiled of all utility costs and has not been broken down into the categories of ‘electricity, gas and heating oil’.

Section 12(1) – cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit

I can confirm that we hold information relevant to your request, but it is subject to a Refusal Notice under section 12(1) of FOIA. This exemption applies because we estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit as laid down in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

For IPSA this amount is set at £450 or 18 hours’ work. In calculating whether the appropriate limit has been reached, an organisation can take into account the cost of:

(a) Determining whether it holds the information,

(b) Locating the information, or a document which may contain the information,

(c) Retrieving the information, or a document which may contain the information, and

(d) Extracting the information from a document containing it.

To identify claims made for electricity, gas and heating oil, we would have to review the 677 claims submitted between 2021/22 that fall under 'dual fuel', 'other' and 'not applicable' (e.g. service charges and part shares of bills). We would then need to check every bill manually to identify allocation to each energy claim and then extract the amounts. This would be a significant amount of work.

We have estimated that it takes approximately three minutes to find, export and review each receipt to identify the type of energy claimed. It would, therefore, take us an estimated 33.85 hours to locate, export and extract the information requested.