Scottish MPs' travel expenses

IPSA holds the information that you request.

You may be aware that IPSA publishes all claims for business costs and expenses on our website every two months, three months in arrears.  You can view the published information via the following link to our publication website: http://www.parliamentary-standards.org.uk/

To retrieve claims for travel to Scotland, the following instructions may assist you in filtering the information:

1. Select ‘Search Function’ via the menu bar at the top of the page.

2. Select MP(s), Constituencies, Postcode or Region, or tick the box to select all MPs.

3. Select a year and, optionally, month(s).

4. Under ‘Select category(s) of Business Cost or Expense’, select Travel.

5. Under ‘Select type(s) of Business Cost or Expense’, tick the box to select all.

6. Under ‘Select type(s) of Journeys’, tick the box to select all.

7. Click ‘Find’ to retrieve the information. 

This will retrieve all journeys made and claimed by MPs in the period specified.  You can export the results to a spreadsheet under the link at the top right-hand side, and then filter to select journeys made between the dates specified, for journeys made to locations in Scotland, by MPs representing constituencies outside Scotland.

The FOIA states that information that is accessible by other means is not subject to release. Therefore, as the information you have requested is already available on our website, it is exempt from disclosure under section 21 of the FOIA (information accessible to applicant by other means).

With regards to your request for the ‘expense claims’, the claims themselves are made on an online system and submitted to IPSA electronically; these are what can be viewed on our website using the link and instructions provided above. Supporting documentation, such as a train ticket, is required alongside the submission of expense claim. To provide copies of this supporting documentation, we would be required to manually search through each individual claim for travel made by MPs during the period specified and extract the relevant information from the all the documentation held. We estimate that to do this would significantly exceed the appropriate cost limit of £450 (part 1 of Schedule 1 of the Freedom of Information Act).  Consequently, we are not able to provide this information (see section 12(1), FOIA).