Corporate Officer of the House of Commons v Information Commissioner [2008] EWHC 1084
PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE – FREEDOM OF INFORMATION – JURISDICTION
Facts
Numerous requests were made to the House of Commons under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for detailed breakdowns of some MPs’ claims under the Additional Costs Allowances scheme. These requests were refused on the basis that to allow them would infringe Parliamentary Privilege. At first instance, the Tribunal overturned this decision and directed that the information requested should be disclosed. The House of Commons appealed to the High Court.
Issues
The issues were: firstly, whether the court had the jurisdiction to review the decision; and secondly whether the decision to refuse the requests were substantively flawed, particularly in that it had failed to give sufficient consideration to the expectations of MPs as to what information would be made publicly available.
Decision/Outcome
On the jurisdiction issue, the Court held that although it did not have jurisdiction to revisit the findings of fact which had been made by the tribunal, it was able to consider whether the decision was legally flawed.
Substantively, the Court held that the decision of the Tribunal was not legally flawed and should be upheld. The exemption claimed was not available in this case, as the information claimed did not in fact infringe Parliamentary privilege. The issue of redactions had been addressed by the Tribunal, and this was sufficient to address any legitimate concerns about the privacy of MPs relied on by the House of Commons. Further, MPs had been made aware of the coming into force of the 2000 Act and should have been aware of what information might be disclosed under its terms.
Updated 19 March 2026
This case note accurately summarises the decision in Corporate Officer of the House of Commons v Information Commissioner [2008] EWHC 1084 (Admin). The legal principles described remain accurate. The case arose in the context of the MPs’ expenses controversy and predated the wider public disclosure of expenses data that followed in 2009. Readers should note that the Additional Costs Allowance scheme discussed in the case has since been abolished; the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) was established by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 to administer a new MPs’ expenses and allowances regime. These developments do not affect the correctness of the legal analysis in the case itself, which remains good law on the relationship between Freedom of Information Act 2000 requests, Parliamentary privilege, and the jurisdiction of the courts and Information Tribunal to review refusal decisions. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 remains in force in its essential structure as described.
