Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the total cost was of maintaining the UK Permanent Representation to the EU in each of the last five years.

We cannot provide a figure for the total cost of maintaining the UK Permanent Representation to the EU (UKRep) in each of the last five years, except at disproportionate cost.

The budgets involved are aggregated in different ways, normally across HMG’s Brussels platform as a whole, which consists of UKRep, the British Embassy in Belgium, including UKTI and Consular operations, the UK Joint Delegation to NATO and Corporate Services Benelux.

Administrative resource spend, which includes, but is not limited to, Locally Engaged staff salaries, travel costs, telecoms, catering and entertainment and IT, is shared across the Brussels platform and difficult to disaggregate. Facilities management costs (eg security, reception, cleaning) are also shared across the Brussels platform and difficult to disaggregate. The rent spent on the offices which house UKRep and the British Embassy is aggregated. Salaries and allowances paid to UK-based staff working at UKRep are captured in further separate budgets, and would involve significant resource to disaggregate.