Travel claims for the Prime Minister

Request

Please kindly provide a copy of the recorded materials of relevance to this question: When Prime Ministers make trips to events specific to their political party are these paid by the taxpayer?

If you don't hold any recorded materials of relevance then please kindly provide advice and assistance on who we should contact.

Source: Rishi Sunak racked up £38,500 bill flying by private jet to Tory events https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-racked-up-38500-30133334


Response

The costs incurred by anyone who is the sitting Prime Minister are broken down into two:

  1. Whether they are acting in their capacity as Prime Minister .

  2. Whether they are acting in their capacity as MP on business for their constituency.

IPSA was established in 2009 to:

  • to regulate MPs’ staffing and business costs

  • to determine MPs’ pay and pension arrangements

  • to provide financial support to MPs in carrying out their parliamentary functions

This means that, while we hold information about staffing and business costs incurred as part of an MP’s parliamentary role as an elected representative, we do not hold information about any costs relating to ministerial roles. The Cabinet Office is responsible for supporting the Prime Minister with his ministerial duties, you may wish to contact their FOI team at: foi-team@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.

Any costs incurred when an MP is on constituency business would be subject to the rules and principles in The Scheme of MPs' Staffing and Business Costs, which is published by IPSA on its website.

With reference to the linked article, I can confirm that we do not hold any information in relation to travel claims submitted by the MP.

The details of claims made by all individuals acting in their capacity as MP are published and can be found on our Annual budgets, costs and claims webpage, within the Individual business costs data spreadsheets.

Ref:
RFI-202306-01
Disclosure:
3 July 2023
Categories:
MPs' TRAVEL
Exemptions Applied: