All invoices submitted by Paul Maskey MP between January 2017 and August 2018

IPSA holds the information that you request.

Details of claims made by MPs are published on our website. For security reasons, our publication policy states that we will not publish individual travel claims made by MPs representing constituencies in Northern Ireland. Instead, we publish aggregate totals of these claims, broken down by MP, expense type, traveller type and journey type.

Please find attached copies of the receipts submitted by Paul Maskey for all claims between 1 January 2017 and 30 July 2018. For security reasons, we have withheld any receipts relating to travel claims. Further information on this can be found below.

Exemptions applied

Some details relating to third parties (such as the names of junior staff members) are ‘personal data’, as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). As such, we are unable to disclose this information. Section 40(2) of the FOIA 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.  

In addition, we have withheld invoice numbers, account details and other sensitive financial information under Section 31(1)(a) (Law enforcement) 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, 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.

Invoices for any travel claims have been withheld 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 concerned. 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.