Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many non-disclosure agreements his Department entered into in 2010.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) does not centrally hold information on non-disclosure agreements as there is no legal or business requirement to do so.

Within the standard terms of contracts signed with suppliers for the provision of goods and service to the MoJ there are clauses about interaction between the parties, how to protect the parties’ best interests and safeguard commercial and sensitive information which have been present in government contracts for a long time. These clauses are not considered to be Non-Disclosure Agreements and are not intended to stop criticism of Ministers, the Department or its policies.

Since January 2011, details of central government contracts above the value of £10,000 are published on Contracts Finder. Contracts published prior to 26 February 2015 can be viewed at: https://data.gov.uk/data/contracts-finder-archive Those published after 26 February 2015 can be viewed at: https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Search