Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his Department's monthly publications of government procurement card spending over £500 on stationery, for what reason there is a difference between the total costs of £3,885.04 incurred in the month of November 2021 and the average costs of £637,282.92 incurred in the other 11 months of that year.

Following an internal review, the Ministry of Defence can confirm that a reporting error occurred impacting the November 2021 MOD travel and stationery Government Procurement Card (GPC) transparency report. This was most likely due to the file becoming corrupt on upload. The specific date and reason for this file corruption is unknown at this time, but will be investigated.

The correct data has been arranged to be uploaded as a matter of priority. The Department can confirm the correct figure for November 2021 Stationery spend (over £500) was £540,383.74 (301 transactions).