Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the cost to the public purse was of the recent Airports Commission report into aircraft capacity.

On setting up the Commission in 2012, the Department set a budget of £20.35m to allow for building, staff and IT costs, expert consultancy, publishing, travel and hosting public consultation events over the four financial years 2012/13 to 2015/16.

Sir Howard Davies and his fellow commissioners have not been paid for their work.

The cost to date is around £12.7m. The exact cost will be known once the Commission Secretariat has been completely dissolved, following which we intend to publish the final figures.