Details of travel related claims by MPs in 2022

I can confirm that we hold some information relevant to your request. Under the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (the Scheme) MPs may claim for the costs of travel and travel-related subsistence costs necessarily incurred in the performance of their parliamentary functions.

This may include the cost of congestion charges, mileage and taxis. However, there are no mandatory fields on our system which record claims relating to congestion charges, Ultra Low Emission Zones or road tolls separately: these are all categorised as the Expense Type ‘Congestion charge and toll’.

Although MPs have the option of including additional information about a claim in a free text field which will be published, unless details are provided in this field, we are unable to determine the number of claims specifically for congestion charges.

Details of all claims for business costs are published on our website every two months. The publication date depends on when the MP’s office submits the claim for processing by IPSA. For example, in November we will publish claims that were processed by us in June and July 2022; claims which were submitted after the end of July will be published in January 2023.

You can download details of all claims made for any travel-related claims, including mileage, taxi fares, congestion and low emission charges and road tolls from Annual budgets, costs and claims. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select ‘Individual business costs’. You may then download a spreadsheet listing claims by all MPs for specific financial years.

To identify claims relating to mileage, taxis, congestion and tolls, filter for ‘Mileage – car’, ‘Taxi’, and ‘Congestion charge & toll’ under ‘Expense type’ (column H). Please note that nothing has yet been published for the dates you have requested.

The dates published for these cost types (but not all entries, as dates work differently for payments made by IPSA to direct suppliers) are those entered by the MP’s office for each line.

The date should reflect the day when the cost was incurred, which should coincide with the date of travel for cost types such as mileage and taxi. However, this may not necessarily be the case for congestion and low emission charges as, for example, the London congestion and ultra-low emission zone charges may be paid for up to three previous days: the day of travel, the next day, or for a custom date range; the London low emission charge, for example, may be paid for up to three previous days, the day of travel or any day up to 90 days in the future.

As the information you have requested will be published and made available on our website, the information is exempt from disclosure under FOIA section 22 and IPSA does not need to provide a copy under FOI legislation.

Section 22(1) – future publication

This exemption applies because some of the information you have requested is intended for future publication by IPSA as part of our annual publication.

Section 22(1) is a qualified exemption and requires us to consider the public interest. IPSA recognises how the publication of this information enables the public to understand more the work of MPs and staff management.

There is extensive work involved to prepare the MPs’ staffing information, as part of IPSA’s wider publication.

The information you have requested is scheduled for publication in November 2022 with any claims submitted after July being published in January 2023.

As most of the information you have requested is likely to be available within two months, we find that the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosure at this time.