The Department holds subscriptions to the following news services:

• Dow Jones Factiva
• Times
• Telegraph
• The Independent
• The Guardian
• The Sun
• Daily Express
• Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday + Daily Mail Plus
• Daily Mirror
• Daily Star
• Financial Times
• PoliticsHome
• Bloomberg Online
• Bloomberg Tax Online
• The Economist
• The Spectator
• New Statesman
• Reuters
• Yorkshire Post
• Press Association Mediapoint
• Cision (press cuttings company)

The following is a combined list of subscriptions that the Defra Library and Communications have paid for over the last three financial years. Some are in print and some are online. Not everything on the list was purchased in all three years – subscriptions change on demand and to reflect usage. Information on any subscriptions from other team budgets is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.

Defra Library purchases magazines and journals for Defra, Animal and Plant Health Agency and Natural England staff to support them in their role. The Communications team purchases newspapers for monitoring the media coverage of issues in Defra’s remit.

The Department for Business and Trade has centrally managed subscriptions for the Economist and the Financial Times for financial years 2022/23 and 2023/24. Information on locally sourced and managed subscriptions is not routinely collected and to make it available could only be done at a disproportionate cost.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office does not hold separate data on subscriptions. Many decisions are made by the UK's 281 embassies and diplomatic posts overseas or by individual departments in the UK. As a result, comprehensive information on individual titles is not centrally recorded and collating this information would incur disproportionate cost.

Efficiency savings are made on core titles by providing these centrally online as part of library services and by partnering with other Government Departments to obtain best value for money. These are reviewed annually. Over the last three financial years, the titles listed below have been supplied centrally through the FCDO Library.

The breadth of titles reflects the wide range of issues, events, and crises the FCDO's staff around the world need to keep track of to protect the UK's interests at home and overseas.

a] Newspapers

Bloomberg News; China Global South Project; The Daily Telegraph; The Economist; The Financial Times; Le Monde Diplomatique; The Local - Europe & Sweden (from 2022); The New York Times; Nikkei Asia; Politico Pro; PressReader (over 6,000 titles from 130 countries); South China Morning Post (from 2022); The Times & Sunday Times; The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

b] Magazines

The New Statesman (from 2023) and The Spectator. Other titles are also available via PressReader.

c] Online Journals

Africa Confidential; Africa Intelligence (from 2023); Africa Report (from 2023); African Conflict & Peacebuilding Review; American Economic Review; Annual Review of Economics; Arab Digest; British Medical Journal (to January 2022) Borderlex; Diplomat; Economic and Political Weekly; Elsevier/Science Direct (4,000 titles); European Council Studies (to December 2021); Intelligence Online (to September 2021); International Affairs; Jeune Afrique; Journal of Conflict Resolution; Journal of Democracy; Journal of Japanese Studies; Nature; Nature Climate Change; Nature Food (from 2023); Nature Geoscience (to January 2024); NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) Working Paper Series; NK News; Prospect; Quarterly Journal of Economics; Science; Taylor Francis Package (2,500 titles); Wiley Social Science & Humanities package (to January 2022); World Economics and World Politics; World Trade Online (to January 2022).

HMT’s expenditure on these areas is published as part of the departments on-going support of the transparency reporting programme. These can be viewed using the links below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/gpc-spend

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/25000-spend

https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder

The department does not specifically hold data for the types of publications listed in this question.

The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Some information is available for the Directorate of Defence Communications (DDC) as the lead branch for communications within the Ministry of Defence. The total DDC spend for online and hard copy Newspapers for the last financial year is £12,500. Further information cannot be provided as it cannot be separated out from other expenditure nor is it readily available for previous financial years.

To answer for the whole department would incur disproportionate cost.

Newspapers and magazines that communications directorate and private office have subscribed to in the last three financial years are listed below.

a) Newspapers:

The Daily Express
The Daily Mail
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Telegraph
The Financial Times and FT.Com
The Guardian
The Sun
The Times
Sunday Times online

b) Magazines:

Campaign Magazine
Harvard Business Review
PR Week online
Private Eye
Spectator
The Economist
The New Statesman

The Department has paid for subscriptions to the following publications in the last three financial years:

- print editions of all national daily newspapers together with online editions of the Telegraph, Times and Financial Times;

- The New Statesman;

- The Spectator;

- Economist Nursing Times;

- Private Eye;

- The Voice;

- Health Service Journal;

- GP Online;

- Pulse;

- Health Policy Insight;

- New England Journal of Medicine;

- Journal of American Medicine;

- Nature;

- Bloomberg;

- PR Week; and

- I News.

The cost of the subscriptions totalled approximately £7,700 per year in financial years 2020/21 and 2021/22 and precisely £7718.08 in 2022/23.

The Attorney General’s Office’s (AGO) paid subscriptions to newspapers, magazines, and online journals provide AGO officials with a valuable resource of public discourse on topics relevant to the Department.

The AGO’s paid subscriptions for the last three financial years are set out in the table below.

Please note that I am responding on behalf of the AGO only, and not the departments superintended by the Attorney General and I (the Crown Prosecution Service, HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, Government Legal Department, and Serious Fraud Office).

This information is not held centrally and can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The department does not hold comprehensive information to the level of detail requested.

The requested information is not centrally held, and complying with this request would incur a disproportionate cost to the department.

The Scotland Office can confirm that it has had the following subscriptions in place over the last three financial years:

Press and Journal

The Courier

The Financial Times

The Herald

The Spectator

The Telegraph

The Times

The Scotsman

(a) Newspapers

The Northern Ireland Office has subscribed to the following newspapers in the last three financial years: The Belfast Telegraph online; The Financial Times online and print; The Independent online; The Irish News online; The Irish Independent online; The Irish Times online; The Newsletter online; The Telegraph online and print; The Times print and online; The Guardian print; Daily Mail print; Daily Express print; The Sun print; Daily Mirror print.

(b) Magazines and (c) online journals

The Northern Ireland Office has not subscribed to any magazines or online journals in the last three financial years.

In the financial year 2021/2022, the Ministry of Justice Press Office subscribed to (a) The Times and Telegraph online newspapers, (b) No magazines and (c) No online journals.

In the financial year 2022/2023, the Ministry of Justice Press Office subscribed to (a) The Times and Telegraph online newspapers, (b) No magazines and (c) No online journals.

In the financial year 2023/2024, the Ministry of Justice Press Office subscribed to (a) The Times and Telegraph online newspapers; and a selection of physical newspapers delivered daily via a third party. Titles include: The Times, Daily Mail. Daily Telegraph, The Sun, Daily Mirror, Guardian, Daily Express and Financial Times as well as some Sunday editions of national newspapers. (b) No magazines and (c) No online journals.

This figure is for the Ministry of Justice Press Office team only.

The information requested can only be provided at disproportionate cost. In the central Department for Transport, subscriptions to newspapers, magazines and online journals are managed individually by each team. Therefore, the information is not held centrally.

Details of departmental spend over £250 are published online. The department does not hold a central list of all subscriptions to (a) newspapers, (b) magazines and (c) online journals purchased over the previous three years and this information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The attached spreadsheet lists newspapers, magazines and online journals that have been paid for by DWP in each of the last three years. All journals are provided digitally apart from one print title – Vachers.

A small number of print journals are provided to ministers and press office with their newspaper deliveries. These are listed on the Newspapers tab.

As the Hon Member will know, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) was only created in February 2023 so did not exist three years ago.

Analysis of transactions shows that £157,441 has been spent to date in DSIT on subscriptions of all types.