Invoice for a claim by Stewart Hosie for removal costs

Under the Scheme of MPs' Business Costs and Expenses ('the Scheme'), any MP may apply for contingency funding when they incur expenditure or liability for expenditure which is not covered by any of the other budgets set out in the Scheme. Such applications are considered by IPSA's contingency panel, who consider:

• whether there are exceptional circumstances warranting additional support,

• whether the MP could reasonably have been expected to take any action to avoid the circumstances, and

• whether the MP's performance of parliamentary functions will be significantly impaired by a refusal of the application.

The following details for this claim have already been published on our website.

• Click here to view a copy of the invoice for this claim.

• Click here to view a copy of the application made for contingency funding.

Exemptions applied

Section 31 – law enforcement

We have withheld account numbers, invoice numbers and other information relating to the financial transactions contained within the invoices under Section 31(1)(a) (Law enforcement) of the FOI Act. We have withheld details which, if disclosed, may compromise the personal or financial security of the MP or their staff. This section of the Act states that information is exempt if its disclosure under the FOI Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention (or detection) or crime.

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 probable that this information could be traced back to sensitive personal or commercial information which could be used for criminal activity. Although we recognise the public interest in transparency surrounding the publishing of information relating to MPs’ expenses, there is also a strong public interest in ensuring that we are able to protect our service users from the threat of being subjected to criminal activity. In our opinion the public interest in protecting the security of MPs and their property outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Section 40 – personal information

Some information relating to third-parties, such as personal addresses and the names of staff members, 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.