Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, for each year in which a grant was provided to the group Action on Smoking and Health, how much (1) was spent against the original grant, (2) constituted underspend, and (3) was returned to the Department of Health.

The conditions applicable to grants awarded to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) are set out in the grant award letters. The Department has made clear that none of this funding is to be used for lobbying purposes.

The Section 64 grant must be spent in delivering the the agreed project outputs set out in the grant award letter and it does not fund secretariat support for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health.

ASH’s compliance with the conditions of the grant is assessed at the grant monitoring meetings held between the Deputy Director of tobacco control and representatives from ASH as well as in the final full year grant monitoring and governance reports.

The Department is required to retain information relating to Section 64 grants for six years. The full amount of the grant was spent for each year that a grant was provided to ASH in the past six years.