Lisa Cameron's office lease

Request

Please provide a copy of the lease for premises at East Kilbride Civic Centre against which Dr Lisa Cameron MP is claiming expenses for her Constituency Office.


Response

IPSA holds the information that you request.

Office Costs Expenditure is provided under the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (‘the Scheme’) to meet costs of renting a constituency office. Claims may only be made for constituency office rent 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 their offices. This information can be found at the following address: http://www.parliamentary-standards.org.uk/AnnualisedData.aspx.

Please click here to view a copy of the most recent rental contract held relating to office accommodation rented by Lisa Cameron MP 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.

[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-36832
Disclosure:
11 January 2016
Categories:
COPIES OF RECEIPTS/INVOICESMPs' OFFICE COSTS
Exemptions Applied:
Section 38