Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has spent assisting people with the costs of (a) travel to interview and (b) clothing for interviews or to commence work in each year since 2005.

The information requested is only available from 2007. (a) The costs of assisting people travel to job interviews for each year from 2007 are:

(b) Expenditure for equipment to assist people taking up work, including clothing, for each year from 2007 is in the table below. This expenditure also includes assistance with other equipment e.g. health and safety related workwear, work tools and equipment, bicycles and accessories, laptops and mobile phones.

Expenditure totals are not available solely for clothing and would incur disproportionate cost to identify separately.