To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland which (a) food and (b) drinks companies have supplied his Department in each of the last three years; and how much was paid to each of those suppliers in each of those years. (248794)

The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) records expenditure for food and drink under the description of either hospitality or catering. These expenditure types are also used to record spending on related services and equipment and as a consequence, some of the suppliers used may not be termed as food or drink companies. Due to the high volume of transactions within these expenditure areas, it would only be possible to extract the food and drink companies at disproportionate cost.