Luciana Berger – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2014-04-30.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the (a) purpose and (b) cost of international travel undertaken for official purposes by (i) directors of Public Health England and (ii) members of its advisory board has been since 1 April 2012.

Jane Ellison

The purposes of Public Health England’s (PHE) international travel include:

– to provide expert advice to international agencies such as the World Health Organization and to the Overseas Territories of the United Kingdom (UK);

– to co-ordinate the global preparedness for serious health threats that might affect the UK;

– to provide advice and support to other national public health agencies on public health incidents and initiatives to improve health;

– to contribute to humanitarian responses; and

– to present PHE contributions at international scientific conferences.

The cost of international travel undertaken for official purposes is as follows:

(i) Directors of PHE: £12,458.57

(ii) Members of PHE’s Advisory Board since April 2013: £817.74

International travel has been defined as the cost of transportation wholly outside the UK or tickets to/from a destination outside the UK.