Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of his Department's budget is spent on legal fees and damages.

The Departmental Group spend on legal fees is captured in the Annual Report and Accounts for 2014-15. The Departmental Group spend on legal fees is separately identified under Legal Fees in Other Administration Costs, £61.159 million and Programme Costs £128,642 million totalling £189,801 million.

The majority of the Core Department’s spend on legal fees is captured as part of ‘Other’ spend under ‘Other Administration Costs’, ‘Programme Costs’ and in “Consultancy services”. The Annual Report and Accounts is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-of-health-annual-report-and-accounts-2014-to-2015

It is intended that from the 2015-16 financial year, spend on legal fees for the core Department will be discussed separately in the accounts.