Corporate Officer of the House of Commons v The Information Commissioner & Ors ... Page 1 of 10 [Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback] England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Corporate Officer of the House of Commons v The Information Commissioner & Ors [2008] EWHC 1084 (Admin) (16 May 2008) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2008/1084.html Cite as: [2008] EWHC 1084 (Admin), [2009] 3 All ER 403 (DC) [New search] [Printable RTF version] [Help] Neutral Citation Number: [2008] EWHC 1084 (Admin) Case No: CO2888/2008 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE DIVISIONAL COURT Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL 16/05/2008 B e f o r e : THE PRESIDENT OF THE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION LORD JUSTICE LATHAM and MR JUSTICE BLAKE ____________________ Between: Corporate Officer of the House of Commons Appellant - and - The Information Commissioner Heather Brooke Ben Leapman Jonathan Michael Ungoed-Thomas Respondents ____________________ Nigel Giffin QC and Karen Steyn (instructed by the Treasury Solicitors) for the Appellant James Goudie QC and Akhlaq Choudhury (Mr Mark Thorogood) for the 1st Respondent Hugh Tomlinson QC (instructed by Simons Muirhead & Burton) for the 2nd Respondent Simon McKay, Solicitor Advocate (of McKay Law, Solicitors and Advocates) for the 3rd Respondent Philip Coppel (instructed by Bates Wells & Braithwaite) for the 4th Respondent Hearing dates : 7th May 2008 ____________________ HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT ____________________ http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2008/1084.html 6/12/2013 Corporate Officer of the House of Commons v The Information Commissioner & Ors ... Page 2 of 10 Crown Copyright © President of the Queen's Bench Division : This is the judgment of the Court 1. This appeal is concerned with the right of access under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) to information relating to the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA), an allowance payable to Members of Parliament (MPs) who represent constituencies outside London or outer London constituencies who are eligible to receive ACA rather than the London supplement payable to MPs representing inner London constituencies. Parliamentary Privilege 2. It is a fundamental principle of our constitutional structures that Parliament should not normally be subject to judicial scrutiny or supervision. The House of Commons is answerable to its collective conscience, and in the ultimate analysis, to the electorate. Legal proceedings like these are therefore rare, and it is as well to emphasise at the outset that we are not being asked to address, nor are we addressing, the basis of and justification for the system by which claims for ACA may be made. That is exclusively for the House of Commons itself. The current litigation does not directly or indirectly impeach or question proceedings in Parliament and article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689 is not engaged. Rather we are interpreting and applying the legislation enacted by Parliament. This expressly included the House of Commons among the public authorities to which FOIA applies (Schedule 1 part 1). Specific provision is made for information held by the House to be exempted from the provisions of the Act if any of its privileges may be infringed (s.34(1)). For this purpose the certificate of the Speaker of the House of Commons would provide conclusive evidence (s.34(3)). None has been signed. There is therefore no reason why the right to and extent of access to information relating to the administration of ACA should not be litigated under FOIA. Narrative of the present proceedings 3. The ACA was introduced in 1971. It is one of several allowances available to MPs and reimburses them "for expenses wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred when staying overnight away from their main UK residence…for the purposes of performing Parliamentary duties. This excludes expenses that have been incurred for purely personal or political purposes". 4. The House of Commons published information about the total sums paid annually in respect of this allowance to each of the fourteen MPs expressly identified in these proceedings. However further details including the claim forms and supporting documents were then requested. The particular applications were: a) On 4th January 2005 Mr Ungoed-Thomas, the fourth respondent, made a request for details on the allowances claimed by Tony Blair in 2001/2, 2002/3 and 2003/4, "specifically, a list of the items totalling £43,029". At the same time he made a request in regard to the allowances claimed by Margaret Beckett over the same period, asking "exactly what items the allowances were spent on and the amounts spent on each of the items over each of the three years" and "if refurbishments or works were paid for out of the public purse… what these refurbishments or works were". b) On the following day Mr Ben Leapman, the third respondent, requested copies of the original submissions, together with copies of receipts, rental agreements or mortgage interest statements from a number of named MPs in support of their claims in respect of each of the same three financial years. These MPs were named as Tony Blair, Barbara Follett, Alan Keen, Ann Keen, Peter Mandelson and John Wilkinson. c) In March 2006 Ms Heather Brooke, the second respondent, requested a detailed breakdown of the accommodation allowances claimed by MPs. However she recast her request which sought a detailed breakdown of such claims for 2005/6 and all information held by the House authorities, in relation to the accommodation claims made by Tony Blair, David Cameron, Menzies Campbell, Gordon Brown, George Osborne, John http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2008/1084.html 6/12/2013 Corporate Officer of the House of Commons v The Information Commissioner & Ors ... Page 3 of 10 Prescott, George Galloway, Margaret Beckett, William Hague and Mark Oaten. Mr Galloway was an Inner London MP who was not entitled to and made no claim for the allowances. In his case, therefore, no question arose for decision. For convenience we shall describe the second, third and fourth respondents to the appeal as the applicants. 5. The applications were refused. Complaint was made under section 50 of FOIA to the Information Commissioner (the Commissioner). After a fairly protracted process he decided that the applicants should be provided with a breakdown of the total annual amounts claimed by each MP for accommodation allowances in the specified years. The breakdown was to be given by reference to twelve categories of expense set out in the "Green Book", a House of Commons publication giving details, among other information, about allowances and pensions. Acting through the Corporate Officer of the House of Commons, the House appealed to the Information Tribunal (the Tribunal) under s 57 of FOIA, suggesting that the order for disclosure should not have been made, or alternatively, that the categories of the breakdown of the total annual amounts should be varied. The applicants resisted this appeal and cross-appealed on the basis that the relevant information in respect of each of the four applications should be disclosed in full in accordance with the original or, in the case of Ms Brooke, the amended request. 6. The Tribunal disagreed with the Commissioner. The appeal by the House of Commons was dismissed and the cross appeals were effectively allowed by decision dated 26th February 2008. The Corporate Officer appeals against the Tribunal's decision under section 59 of FOIA. This provides for an appeal from the decision of the Tribunal "on a point of law". Unlike an appeal from the decision of the Commissioner to the Tribunal, this appeal is not a re-hearing nor what is sometimes described as an appeal on the merits. This court has no jurisdiction to interfere with the decision of this specialist Tribunal unless it is legally flawed. The legislative structure 7. Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 creates a general right of access on request to information held by public authorities in recorded form. Dealing with it generally, the person making the request is "entitled" to be informed by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request and if so, "to have that information communicated to him". Section 40 provides the House with the only exemption which arises for consideration in the present case. It concerns personal information. So far as material it provides: "40 - (1) Any information to which a request for information relates is exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject. (2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if (a) it constitutes personal data which do not fall within sub- section (1) and (b) either the first or the second condition below is satisfied (3) The first condition is (a) in a case where the information falls within any of paragraphs (a)-(d) to the definition of "data" in section 1(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998, that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene: (i) Any of the data protection principles… (b) in any other case, that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene any of the data protection principles if the http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2008/1084.html 6/12/2013 Corporate Officer of the House of Commons v The Information Commissioner & Ors ... Page 4 of 10 exemptions in section 33A(1) of The Data Protection Act 1998 (which relate to manual data held by public authorities) were disregarded".