Office winding up costs of Denis MacShane

Under the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (the ‘Scheme’), any MP leaving Parliament may make claims to “to meet the cost of completing the outstanding parliamentary functions of a person who ceases to be an MP”.  Claims for winding up expenditure may only be claimed for business costs and expenses incurred during the two month period after leaving Parliament.  The Scheme allows a maximum of 90 days for submission of claims after a business cost or expense has been incurred.  We publish details of claims for business costs and expenses, including all those for winding up expenditure, on our publication website.

The winding up timetable for Denis MacShane is as follows:

As you may be aware, the claims most recently published on our website on 21 March 2013 cover claims processed between October and November 2012.   Therefore, publication of Mr MacShane’s winding up expenditure claims will follow in subsequent publication releases. 

Section 22(1) of the FOIA states that information intended for future publication is exempt from release.

We have considered whether the public interest in releasing the information outweighs the application of the exemption. It is our opinion that the public interest is best served by publishing a full list rather than on an ad hoc basis, as in this way a clear and complete set of information is published, avoiding any potential confusion. It is for this reason that the application of the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure at this stage.