Invoice submitted by Chris Philp for professional services

IPSA holds the information that you have requested.

Under the Scheme of MPs’ Business Costs and Expenses (‘the Scheme’), claims for reimbursement must be supported by evidence. As such, we hold all supporting documentation provided in support of claims made by MPs.

As you will be aware, details of all claims made by MPs are published on our website every two months, three months after the claims have been processed by IPSA. You can find details of all claims made by Chris Philp on our website via this link.

Under the Scheme, Staffing or Office Costs can be claimed for payments for bought-in services (‘professional services’), where staffing services are provided by companies, self-employed individuals or others not on the payroll.

The following details relating to this claim have already been published.

Please click here to view a copy of the invoice.

Exemptions applied

Section 31 – law enforcement

We have withheld 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.