Parliament destroys MP expenses paperwork

All records of MP expenses prior to 2010 have been destroyed, preventing any further investigations in to them.

A committee headed up by Speaker Bercow ruled that the records should be destroyed after 3 years to comply with data protection laws despite employment records being kept until an MP turns 100 and health and safety records being kept for 40 years.

The Data Protection Act says that information must be used for the purpose for which was collected, only necessary information must be collected and kept and information should only be kept for as long as is necessary to carry out the function for which it was collected. The records of expenses claims are collected for the purpose of ensuring that the claims are valid. The Limitations Act prevents legal action from being taken to recover money owed after 6 years for unsecured debt so the information on MPs' expenses should be kept for at least 6 years.

There is nothing in the Data Protection Act that requires paperwork relating to MPs' expenses to be destroyed in anything less than 6 years, this is just a cover-up.