Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department spent on travel that was not standard class in each of the last five years.

The Department revised its internal travel policy during 2011 in line with the published Cabinet Office Business Travel Policy Principles as indicators of good practice that has contributed to a significant reduction in both rail by 88% and air travel costs by 84%. Furthermore comparing 2015 expenditure to a 2009 baseline under the previous administration illustrates reductions of 99% and 95% respectively.

Spend by the Department on all non-standard class air and rail travel for the last five calendar years 2011 to 2015 is reported in the tables below:

Table 1- Non-standard train travel:

Table 2 – Non-standard air travel:

The Department books the following class of flights; economy, premium economy, and business class. Economy class is always the default booking and an approved business case is required to book business class. If a flight is upgraded free of charge to business class, a business case is not required, although the management information will record a business class flight was taken.