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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to his Department’s publication entitled Defra: spending over £500, January 2025, published on 21 March 2025, what Natural England purchased from Sumup Event Bar Spar in January 2025.

The expenditure detailed relates to a Christmas meal hospitality event held to recognise the contributions of volunteers at Fenn’s, Whixall, and Bettisfield Mosses National Nature Reserve. The total cost of £1,462.50 was processed for payment in January 2025, and it was attended by 65 volunteers invited to a celebratory event to thank them for their volunteering over the previous year. This is a total spend of approximately £22 per attendant.

This National Nature Reserve has the most volunteers (over 100 registered volunteers) for any Natural England National Nature Reserve in the West Midlands . The volunteers contribute to many aspects of the running of the National Nature Reserve. These include:

• Outreach / Engagement /Education - Leading guided walks, Giving talks, assisting with School/College groups, helping with public events, and ensuring that those with disabilities can still enjoy nature
• Assisting with practical works including habitat management, maintenance & access works
• Research / surveys / monitoring – carrying out & assisting with research projects, carrying out surveys / monitoring (inc. species & hydrology)

The volunteers in 2024/25 contributed over 6,000 hours to the National Nature Reserve.

The Cabinet Office has recently announced measures to cut down on this kind of expenditure. This is to correct the lack of respect for public money by the previous government, which allowed this type of spend to be entirely unchecked and unmonitored, including for the time that he was a minister in that department.

The policy detail can be found here:

Government-branded merchandise and away days banned - GOV.UK