Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what was the cost to the public purse of Government attendance at the World Economic Forum in (a) total and (b) by each Department in each of the last five years.

Ministers from the following departments have attended the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting with officials since 2018: Her Majesty’s Treasury (2020, 2019 and 2018); Cabinet Office (2022); and the Departments for International Trade (2022, 2019 and 2018); Health and Social Care (2019); Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (2019 and 2018); Culture, Media and Sport (2019 and 2018); and International Development (2019). The then Prime Minister also attended in 2018.

The Cabinet Office does not hold a centralised database of total Government spending on travel to the World Economic Forum’s annual meetings. However, Ministerial and senior official foreign travel transparency data is published on gov.uk.