Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much her Department has spent on (a) taxis, (b) first class train tickets and (c) business class air travel in each of the last five years.

The table below sets out information for the Core Department in respect of financial years 2009-10 to 2013-14 (the last complete year for which audited information is available).

The system the Department had in place for booking rail and air travel in the period prior to May 2012 did not provide management information on the class of travel. Information on first class train tickets and business class air travel up to and including April 2012 is therefore not held by the Department, and the figures for 2012-13 in this table reflect eleven rather than twelve months’ expenditure.

Some journeys use different classes of ticket for different legs of the journey. These are known as mixed tickets and have been excluded from these figures as it is not possible to identify the element relating to business class travel.