Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, what the cost to the public purse has been since December 2014 of the Government defending cases which have been appealed to the European Court of Justice following a ruling in the Royal Courts or the Supreme Court of England and Wales.

Cases are not appealed to the Court of Justice of the European Union from UK courts but they can ask for preliminary rulings on a point of European law from the Court of Justice of the European Union.

The amount of disbursements paid by the Government for Counsel’s fees and for travel and accommodation costs for hearings in requests for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union from United Kingdom Courts since December 2014 was £33,288.42.

This includes requests for preliminary rulings made by UK Tribunals, but not other legal proceedings in the CJEU in which the UK Courts and Tribunals have played no part. It does not include disbursements incurred but not yet paid, the cost of government lawyers and other staff involved in these cases within the Government, or costs incurred in relation to the domestic aspects of the proceedings, which are not centrally recorded.