To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what records his Department maintains of its expenditure on (a) official hospitality and (b) alcohol for official hospitality. (240466)

The Department records in its accounting system the total of spending on hospitality.

There is no departmental requirement to separately monitor expenditure on alcohol for hospitality purposes and therefore no mechanism for this information to be recorded.

Expenditure on hospitality is made in accordance the Department's internal hospitality policy and is consistent with the principles of Managing Public Money and the Treasury handbook on Regularity and Propriety.

The policy applies to all staff and specifies that no alcohol is to be provided as part of in-house hospitality (e.g. conferences and away days).