Lib Dem MP, Norman Baker, has received the breakdown of MPs travel expenses from the House of Commons authorities after they lost their appeal to the Information Tribunal to keep the information out of the public domain.
Mr Baker, who first submitted his FOI request on the matter two years ago in January 2005, successfully refuted the House authorities' claim of a valid exemption on the basis that the publication of such a breakdown would constitute the release of personal information relating to individual MPs.
Commenting on the victory, Norman Baker said:
"This is an important victory in the battle to make Parliament and the use of public money more accountable to the people. I am absolutely delighted to have won my case on the matter and think the figures make very interesting reading. I hope that now this information is in the public domain it will entail both a downward pressure on overall expenditure and also make MPs think twice about the environmental impact of their journeys and how it could be lessened.
"This is also a timely victory in light of the turning tide against Freedom of Information. With the current proposed amendments to Fees Regulations for FOI requests and David Maclean's Private Member's Bill, which proposes a blanket exemption for Parliament, Freedom of Information is clearly in danger. I want to make sure that Freedom of Information remains in the British bloodstream and is not some kind of Prague Spring.
"What is more, there was absolutely no reason not to release this information to the public in the first place and I will certainly be asking parliamentary questions when the House sits again about the amount of taxpayers' money that was spent fighting against the release of it. If the public are paying then they have the right to know what the money is being spent on."
The tables to date are available here in pdf format (approximately 64kb each):
And they are available from the Parliament website.
|Home
Contact Norman at:
Norman Baker,
23 East Street,
Lewes,
East Sussex,
BN7 2LJ.
Tel: (01273) 480281.
Fax: (01273) 480287.
Email: info
Printed and hosted by Pipex Communications UK Ltd, Humber Buildings, Humber Rd, Beeston, Notts, NG9 2ET. Published and promoted by Norman Baker MP, House of Commons, Westminster, London SW1A 1AA. The views expressed are those of Norman Baker, not of the service provider.
