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Secret addresses

Martin Rosenbaum | 13:05 UK time, Thursday, 3 July 2008

MPs are in the happy, or perhaps unhappy, position of talking about and voting on their own pay today.

A small part of today's will involve the question of whether MPs' home addresses should be removed from any receipts and invoices disclosed following FOI requests about spending from the additional costs allowance for second homes.

The House of Commons will undoubtedly support the motion from that the Speaker should take account of how MPs' security may be threatened by publication of their home addresses.

In itself this won't determine what should or should not be released. But it's pretty clear that in practice from now on it's unlikely that freedom of information requests about expenses will lead to the disclosure of MPs' addresses.

Although this is apparently in defiance of the (paras 37-44), there are enough caveats are special security reasons to allow MPs to use the security argument to prevent publication where the individual MP wants to - especially since the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas that on this issue he supports privacy rather than openness.

Many MPs certainly feel strongly about this, a feeling reinforced by the incident of Harman's unwelcome rooftop visitors. I suspect that on this issue they will receive more public sympathy than on their other decisions today about their pay and allowances.

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