Receipts or invoices for accommodation expenditure

Request

  1. The most recent rental contract supplied to IPSA by Daniel Byles MP.

  2. The most recent rental contract supplied to IPSA by Martin Docherty MP.

  3. Please could you provide the receipts and any other supporting documents for the following expenses claims:

    1. MP: Guto Bebb Claim No.: 440633 Date: 09/06/2015 Amount: £180.36

    2. MP: Mike B Wood Claim No.: 440813 Date: 09/06/2015 Amount: £357

    3. MP: Andrew Turner Claim No.: 440730 Date: 09/06/2015 Amount: £149

    4. MP: Andrew Bridgen Claim No.: 438911 Date: 04/06/2015 Amount: £600

    5. MP: Callum McCaig Claim No.: 440563 Date: 01/06/2015 Amount: £716


Response

Under the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (‘the Scheme’), all claims for reimbursement under the Scheme must be supported by evidence. You can view a copy of the Scheme on our website via this link. As such, we hold all supporting documentation provided in support of claims made by MPs – including leases for rental arrangements and invoices for hotel stays.

Rental contracts

Accommodation Expenditure is provided under the Scheme to meet costs necessarily incurred on overnight accommodation which is required for the performance of an MP’s parliamentary functions.

MPs may only claim for Accommodation Expenditure in relation to a property at one location, which may be either:

  1. In the London Area, or

  2. Within the MP’s constituency, or within 20 miles of any point on the constituency boundary.

Claims may only be made for Accommodation Expenditure (other than hotel costs) once IPSA has approved the MP’s rental contract and agreed that such claims can be made.

At the end of each financial year[1], we publish the names of all landlords from whom MPs rent accommodation alongside the first part of the postcode for the property rented. This information can be found at the following address: http://www.parliamentary-standards.org.uk/AnnualisedData.aspx.

Please find attached most recent rental contracts held relating to accommodation rented by Dan Byles and Martin Docherty under the Scheme.

We have withheld information pertaining to the location or layout of the properties under Section 38(1)(b) (Health and safety) of the FOI Act. This section of the Act states that information is exempt if its disclosure under the FOI Act would, or would be likely to, endanger the safety of any individual. After considering the nature of the withheld information it is our opinion that were a disclosure to be made into the public domain it is likely that this information could be used to endanger the safety of the individuals who rely upon these locations for accommodation. Although we recognise the public interest in transparency surrounding the publishing of this information there is also a strong public interest in ensuring that as an organisation we are able to protect our service users from threats to their safety. In our opinion the public interest in protecting the personal safety of MPs’ outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

We have also withheld some personal information, such as the names and signatures of third parties (under section 40 of the FOIA). Section 40(2) provides that personal information about third parties is exempt information if disclosure would breach the fair processing principle (Principle 1) of the DPA, where it would be unfair to those persons or is confidential. You can find out more information about personal data and FOI via guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on their website: http://ico.org.uk.

Receipts

Please click here to download copies of all invoices and receipts submitted to us in support of the claims specified in your request. As with the leases, we have withheld personal information under section 40 of the FOIA, and the specific location of the hotels under section 38 of the FOIA.

[1] We started this exercise for the 2014-15 financial year and will update on an annual basis following the end of each financial year.

Ref:
CAS-34406
Disclosure:
18 December 2015
Categories:
COPIES OF RECEIPTS/INVOICESMPs' ACCOMMODATION
Exemptions Applied:
Section 31