Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how much her Department has spent on external consultants in each of the last five years; and if she will publish a breakdown of the (a) amount paid to each consultancy contracted, (b) name of each consultancy contracted and (c) specific matters on which they were consulted.

For the last five years, The Attorney General’s Office has had a nil spend for external consultants*

Details of all Government contracts awarded from 2016 above £10,000 and £25,000 in the wider public sector are published on Contracts Finder. Each award notice provides information on the name of the supplier, value of the contract, its purpose and information on the type of awarding procedure used. Government departments, their individual agencies and Arm’s Length Bodies are required to publish all spend against individual suppliers above £25,000 on GOV.UK.

All Government Departments and their individual ALBs and agencies are required to follow the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 in awarding contracts.

* Whilst preparing this response the department have not considered the use of specialist counsel or short-term contractor contracts as consultancy.