To ask Her Majesty's Government how much officials of the Northern Ireland Office claimed on expenses for the use of taxis in December of each of the last five years. [HL948]

Staff may claim taxi expenses for non-pre-booked journeys which are approved by line managers in accordance with the departmental travel policy. These are reimbursed through staff expenses claims and are recorded as incidental expenditure on the departmental finance system.

Extracting the information requested would require a manual investigation of all the claims for this period. These costs cannot be provided except at disproportionate cost.