MPs’ business costs
Melanie Onn
IPSA paid £1,022,010 against 599 published rows for Melanie Onn between 2015-16 and 2025-26 as the member for Great Grimsby BC, then Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes BC. These are the costs of running an office and employing staff under IPSA’s rules. They are not salary, and the largest part of them is wages IPSA pays to the member’s employees rather than money the member receives.
By category, 2020-21
2 claims, £1,002 paid. The headings are IPSA’s own categories grouped; the categories inside each are named on the register page.
| Category | What it covers | Claims | Paid | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting up and winding up | The one-off costs of opening an office on election and of closing one on leaving. These fall in the years around a general election and are absent from the rest. | 1 | £757 | 75.5% |
| Miscellaneous | Claims IPSA records under none of the headings above. Called “Miscellaneous Expenses” until 2018-19. | 1 | £245 | 24.5% |
Every year in the register
Melanie Onn’s own years, not the register’s: the first is 2015-16 and the last is 2025-26. Figures are not adjusted for inflation, so a rise between two distant years is partly a rise in prices. Select a year to read it on its own.
| Year | Claims | Staffing | Office costs | Accommodation | Travel | Starting up and winding up | Miscellaneous | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | 79 | £83,847 | £9,566 | £14,521 | £6,498 | £5,331 | — | £119,763 |
| 2016-17 | 90 | £114,239 | £10,126 | £22,329 | £6,613 | — | — | £153,307 |
| 2017-18 | 100 | £127,358 | £17,533 | £20,355 | £4,794 | — | — | £170,041 |
| 2018-19 | 93 | £137,122 | £20,545 | £20,666 | £8,009 | — | — | £186,342 |
| 2019-20 | 87 | £94,968 | £10,972 | £13,628 | £6,032 | £37,201 | £13,409 | £176,210 |
| 2020-21 | 2 | — | — | — | — | £757 | £245 | £1,002 |
| 2024-25 | 98 | £156,628 | £18,926 | £14,797 | £10,864 | — | — | £201,216 |
| 2025-26 | 50 | — | £14,130 | — | — | — | — | £14,130 |
A year in which Melanie Onn joined or left the House part-way through is a part year, and is not comparable with a full one.
What each category is made of, 2020-21
The cost types IPSA records inside each heading, largest first by what it paid.
Starting up and winding up
| Cost type | Claims | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Rent | 1 | £757 |
Miscellaneous
| Cost type | Claims | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Cleaning services | 1 | £245 |
Largest claims, 2020-21
The 2 rows IPSA paid most against, with IPSA’s own description of each. Read the description before the amount: IPSA publishes most of a member’s staffing as one row for the whole year — “Total Staffing budget payroll costs for the ⟨year⟩ year” — so the largest row here is usually a year of wages for the member’s employees and not something bought.
| Date | Category | Cost type | Description | Claimed | Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 April 2020 | Winding Up | Rent | [***] | £757 | £757 |
| 14 February 2020 | Miscellaneous | Cleaning services | Final cleaning claim - contingency | £245 | £245 |
What this page does not show
Whether any of it was justified. IPSA accepted these claims under its own rules and the register records what was paid, not whether it should have been. A large total is not a finding about the member.
Nor how Melanie Onn compares with another member. After staffing the largest headings are accommodation and travel, and both are decided mostly by where a constituency is: a member several hundred miles from Westminster is eligible for costs a member with a London seat is not. Two members’ totals are two sets of rules as much as two sets of choices, and the length of service differs too.
It is also not pay. IPSA sets and publishes MPs’ salaries separately and they are not in this register; the staffing figure here is the salaries of the member’s employees.
All MPs’ business costs · Melanie Onn’s register of interests and votes · Sources