Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much his Department spent on (a) art, (b) wine and (c) hospitality in each of the last seven financial years for which figures are available.
The Department does not purchase art. Any works of art held by the Department are loaned from the Government Art Collection.
The Department’s expenses policy does not allow staff to claim for the cost of alcohol of any kind. Wine is very occasionally provided at events for external stakeholders but the cost of beverages is not recorded separately within the cost of catering and hospitality.
Expenditure on catering and hospitality, covering the financial years since the Department was formed, is shown in the table below.
Category | 2016/17 (audited) (August 2016 – March 2017) | 2017/18 (unaudited) |
Catering and Hospitality | £53,761 | £48,596 |