Business costs for Peter Bone, MP

I can confirm that we hold information relevant to your request, but it is subject to a Refusal Notice under sections 21 and 22 of the FOIA.

IPSA publishes the staffing and business costs of all MPs on its website and the claims for Mr Bone can be found at: Search MP by name

As this information is available from IPSA's website, it is subject to the exemption under section 21 of the FOIA (information accessible to applicant by other means).

Information not yet available on the website is exempt from disclosure under section 22(1) of the FOIA; this exemption applies where information is intended for future publication and is subject to a public interest test. MPs have a certain amount of time in which to submit their claims and once submitted there follows a period of validation and reconciliation, before the information is ready for publication.

The details of this can be found at a guide to MPs business costs, under "When do you publish details of MPs claims".

IPSA can see how the public interest in disclosure of information about MPs' business costs enables MPs to be held accountable for both their actions and use of public money and that this raises public awareness of the work of MPs and the wider democratic process. IPSA is committed to being as transparent as possible however we also have a responsibility to be fair to MPs and ensure that the information which is made available about their business costs is accurate and has had time to undergo the necessary checks.

While the FOIA is not concerned with the accuracy of any information which is disclosed, the release into the public domain of potentially inaccurate information about MPs' business costs could be misleading to the public and result in a misunderstanding about the operation of MPs' offices.

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