§ 80. Sir W. SUGDENasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury why necessary books and papers essential for use by Members of Parliament in their duties with local authorities, for example, British and Foreign State Papers, Volume CXV, Building Science Abstracts, Volume I, New Series 8 and 9, Chronological Tables and Index of the Statutes, 606 Volumes I and II, for 1926 and 1927, are refused on application to His Majesty's Stationery Office save on highly expensive terms; and why they are available to persons with less responsibilities as a free issue?
Mr. SAMUELThe papers referred to by the hon. Member are Stationery Office publications. They would only be available as such to Members as a free issue, if they had been published in the current Session, and were reasonably required for the discharge of Parliamentary duties. The particular papers in question, being of a totally different character from the normal Government publications, have always been regarded as outside the concession of free issue, and I am not prepared to extend the concession so as to include them.