Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much the Coal Authority has spent on external legal advice in each of the last five years.

The Coal Authority’s external legal spend over the last five years is broken-down as follows:

Oct 2011 - Sep 2012 448,512.24

Oct 2012 - Sep 2013 615,208.40

Oct 2013 - Sep 2014 418,516.90

Oct 2014 - Sep 2015 371,561.44

Oct 2015 - Sep 2016 771,867.78