Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, 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 Home Office is performing well in reducing spending while protecting and improving our services. Against an 09/10 baseline, Government has saved £1.4billion through centralising arrangements for common goods and services.

Since 2009/10 we hve reduced the use of taxis by over 30% and we have cut spending on first class rail travel by 92% since 2010/11. Between 2006-2010 and 2010-2014, we have cut spending on taxis by £1.4m, on first-class rail by £3m, and all air travel by £4m.

The spend for taxis, first class train tickets and business class air travel in the last five years are as follows.

Taxis*
2009-2010 £768,623.66
2010-2011 £531,192.09
2011-2012 £318,944.83
2012-2013 £534,167.57
2013-2014 £529,919.39


First Class Train Tickets**
2010-2011 £203,884.12
2011-2012 £26,051.22
2012-2013 £23,232.63
2013-2014 £22,934.14


Business Class Air Travel***
2010-2011 £678,187.04
2011-2012 £861,537.43
2012-2013 £667,298.69
2013-2014 £1,010,037.59

It is not possible to separately identify the cost of first class train tickets and business class air travel in 2009/2010.