To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the answer of 12 May 2009, Official Report, column 747W, on departmental official hospitality, how much his Department spent on entertainment and hospitality in (a) each year from 1997-98 to 2006-07 and (b) 2008-09. (290178)

The MOD has spent the following on entertainment and hospitality.

These figures include expenditure by the Defence Agencies, but not by the MOD's Trading Funds and Executive Non-Departmental Bodies, which lie outside the MOD's accounting boundary.

Expenditure on entertaining and hospitality is incurred according to business need and is subject to prior approval and compliance with departmental rules and the principles of propriety set out in Managing Public Money and the Treasury's handbook on Regularity, Propriety and Value for Money. Departmental-level information on expenditure on entertainment and hospitality has been routinely published for many years, including in our annual report and accounts. From 2008-09 this information is shown broken down between “Other Administration Costs” (in Note 10a) and “Other Programme Costs” (in Note 10b).