Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much his Department has spent on promoted content on (a) Twitter, (b) Facebook and (c) Instagram in each month since June 2017.

Digital advertising is a cost-effective way for the government to recruit nurses, promote blood donations, find out about pensions and all the other important information the public needs to be aware of.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office spent a total of £106,526.24 with central Government’s media buying Agency Carat, of this spend £15,599.81 was spent on promoted activity with these platforms since June 2017. The total spend amounts to approximately 0.000355% of overall annual communications spend across Government this year. Budgets and decisions on expenditure are delegated to Posts and we do not hold complete data on promoted content spend overseas.