Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his 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 Department’s travel and expenses policy clearly states that taxis are an expensive form of publicly available transport and should only be considered if their use is cost effective and delivers a business benefit.

Taxis must not be used for journeys of more than five miles unless no other form of public transport is available. Only exceptionally should taxis be used for journeys between the Department’s London offices, or in Leeds when the Leeds Shuttle Bus is unavailable.

The combined total amount spent on taxi travel by all calendar years was £877,542 between 2009 and December 2014 and the total expenditure is comprised of management information through I-Expenses and Business Management System (BMS) as noted from the tables below.

The following table is as taken from I-Expenses:

The following information has been drawn from the Department’s Business Management System (BMS). BMS is a centralised database which was introduced in July 2008. It allows the Department to collect detail on the categorisation, purpose and value of orders and purchases.

The Department’s travel policy states that all rail travel must be standard class regardless of grade unless there is a clear business need to travel first class. First class rail tickets will require senior civil servant approval.

The total amount spent on first class travel by calendar year was £5,570,735 between 2009 and up to December 2014 as noted in the following table.

For comparison, equivalent spend on first class trains from 2005 to 2008 was:

The Department books the following classes of flights; economy, premium economy, and business class. Economy class is the default booking and an approved business case is required to book business class. If a flight is upgraded free of charge to business class, a business case is not required, although the management information will record a business class flight was taken.

The total amount spent on business class flights by calendar year was £1,090,466 between 2009 and December 2014.

For comparison, equivalent spend on business class flights from 2005 to 2008 was: