MPs to escape expenses investigations after paperwork destroyed by Parliament.
I find JPA's expenses system as annoying as most, as someone who travels maybe 6 times a year to other parts of the world with work. The most irksome part, to me, is having to retain evidence and indeed some sort of accurate memory of every single claim dating back 6 years, in case the audit spectre appears and demands to know what I had for lunch on that posting journey in December 2008.
Turns out that if you're an MP, data protection rules state that all information pertaining to your claim has to be destroyed after 3 years.
Under the House of Commons "Authorised Records Disposal Practice, which is overseen by Mr Bercow’s committee, records of MPs’ expenses claims are destroyed after three years. The move is necessary to comply with data protection laws, a Commons spokesman said.
So does this mean if I'm ever the target of an audit for 4-6 years ago, I can write to my MP asking why records of this claim have even been kept, breaking DP laws? Has anyone been subject to an audit like this?
Outrage over their conveniently-lost paperwork seems much worse when they cite a reason that directly affects our own system.