House of Commons

The complainant wrote to the House of Commons to request the amounts spent by seven MPs since May 2005 on circulars and reports to their constituents. The House informed the complainant that disclosure of the requested information would breach the Data Protection Act and is therefore exempt from disclosure under section 40 of the Act (Personal information). The Commissioner has decided that the House breached section 1 of the Act (General right of access to information held by public authorities) by not clarifying to the complainant the information held in relation to the request. He has further decided that the information held is not exempt from disclosure under section 40 and therefore requires it to be released.