Written question asked by Lord Spellar (Labour) on Tuesday, 20 December 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 9 January 2006. It was answered by Mike O'Brien (Labour) on Wednesday, 15 February 2006 on behalf of the Solicitor General.

Departmental Expenditure

Question: To ask the Solicitor-General how much the Law Officers Department spent on bottled water in 2004–05.

Answer: 2004–05 the Crown Prosecution Service, HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate and the Legal Secretariat to the Law Officers spent £75,600 on the provision by contract of bottled water, cups, machine rental, sanitisation and maintenance. It has not been possible to isolate the expenditure on bottled water alone.The aforementioned figures do not include bottles of water available at meetings. No separate details are available for this expenditure and it would incur disproportionate cost to extract it.The Serious Fraud Office, Treasury Solicitor's Department and parts of the Crown Prosecution Service do not purchase bottled water but provide staff with chilled, filtered water.The Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office was set up on 18 April 2005 so does not fall within the timeframe of this question.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 442 c2087W;442 c2087W; 40326
Session: 2005-06
Subjects: Bottles Government departments Drinking water Water Solicitor General
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk