Expenses of

Parliament

MP's expenses became national news just over a decade ago when leaked information revealed widespread abuse of parliamentary allowances.

After a series of sackings, resignations and around half a million pounds of public money being returned, has anything changed 10 years on?

We have looked at the expense claims of each MP to find out who has been claiming the most.

Search your local constituency or MP below to see how much they claimed for the 2017/18 financial year and how this compares to other parties.

How To Use:

Type your MP’s name OR constituency into the boxes below OR use the dropdown menus

Note: A general election took place during the 2017/18 financial year, meaning many constituencies had more than one MP during this period.

How Does Your Local MP’s Spending

Compare?

Your MP(s):

for of party

Spent a total of:

in the last full financial year. This breaks down as:

Office

£X

STAFF

£X

WINDUP

£X

Staff Absence

£X

Accommodation

£X

TRAVEL

£X

OTHER SPEND

£X

That’s

0%

than the average MP spend of

£156,491

That’s

0%

than the MP’s average spend of:

£xx,xx

Total Spending

By Party

Overall, £117 Million was claimed by MPs for the 2017/18 financial year, the majority of which is accounted for by staffing costs (£86.5m), followed by accommodation (£8.4m) and travel (£4.1m).

The Conservative party claimed the highest amount throughout the period (£54.7m), however, they also had the highest number of sitting MP’s.

Rank
Party
Number
of MPs
Office
STAFF
WINDUP
Staff
Absence
Accommodation
Travel
Other
TOTAL
SPEND

 

National Total

No. of MPs

750

OFFICE

£12,329,637

STAFF

£86,583,768

WINDUP

£4,577,109

Staff Absence

£1,001,571

Accommodation

£8,425,441

TRAVEL

£4,155,978

OTHER

£287,919

TOTAL SPEND

£117,368,005

Average Spending

By Party

On average, the DUP were the party that claimed the most, with £194,537 per MP, largely due to the cost of travelling over from Northern Ireland.

It’s also worth noting that while MPs based in London have a slightly higher expenses budget, they often actually claim for less as they can’t claim for a second home in the capital.

Rank
Party
Number
of MPs
Office
STAFF
WINDUP
Staff
Absence
Accommodation
Travel
Other
TOTAL
SPEND

 

National Average

 

OFFICE

£16,439.52

STAFF

£115,445.02

WINDUP

£6,102.81

Staff Absence

£1,337.21

Accommodation

£11,233.92

TRAVEL

£5,541.30

OTHER

£383.89

TOTAL SPEND

£156,490.67

ALL MP’S Spending

Rank
MP
Party
Constituency
Office
Staffing
spend
Windup
spend
Absence
spend
Accomm.
spend
Travel
subs spend
Other
spend
Overall
total

METHODOLOGY

All figures taken from the ISPA’s annual publication of MP costs. MP expenses data relates to the 2017-18 financial year, data downloaded 29/11/2019 - Correct and accurate at time of publication.

Please note, total figure refers to the ‘Overall total spend for this financial year’ quoted and does not include any contingency amounts granted.

Also note that the IPSA have highlighted there may be small variance between the data available on an individual MP's page on their website and the data in the annual publication. The data on an MP's IPSA page reflects the sum of all the individual claims that have been published on the website, but it is possible that certain claims or repayments have not been accounted for in those figures. Therefore, the data on the total spend spreadsheets which we have used here are more up to date as they include final changes made up to the 1 November.

While many MP’s have changed political affiliation since the end of the 2017-18 financial year, the data above relates to their expenses while serving the party that they stood for during the 2017 general election, with the exception of Anne Marie Morris, Jared O’Mara, Kelvin Hopkins, Charlie Elphicke, Ivan Lewis and Barry McElduff, all of whom also stood as independent MP’s during this period.

A general election took place in June 2017, not long after this data begins, meaning that some constituencies were represented by more than one MP during the twelve-month period.