Invoices for all hotel claims made by Simon Danczuk MP

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.

Accommodation Expenditure is designed to meet costs necessarily incurred on overnight accommodation which is required for the performance of an MP’s parliamentary functions. It can only be claimed in relation to a property at one location, for either hotel accommodation or a rented property. In relation to hotel accommodation, claims can only be made up to a maximum cost of £150 per night in the London Area. Any additional costs in excess of this limit are covered by the MP themselves.

Further, MPs can claim (under Travel and Subsistence Expenditure) for a maximum of three return journeys per year to the national Parliaments of Council of Europe member states, or institutions and agencies of the European Union. Where an MP claims for a hotel stay outside the United Kingdom, this is subject to an upper limit of £150 per night.

The following information has already been published on our publication website relating to Mr Danczuk’s claims for hotel accommodation.

View copies of the invoices submitted by Mr Danczuk in support of the claims listed in your request. As noted above, any additional costs included on the invoices and not published on our publication website were not claimed by the MP.

Exemptions applied

Section 38 – health and safety

We have withheld some information from the invoices (such as the specific location of hotels utilised by the MP on a regular basis, or any information which may identify the specific location of the hotels) 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.

Section 40 – personal information

This names and data relating to third parties is ‘personal data’, as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). As such, we have withheld such information in accordance with section 40 of the FOIA. For reference, 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.