§ Q3. Sir Ian Orr-Ewingasked the Prime Minister why it has been necessary to expand the number of staff in the office of the Chief Information Adviser to Her Majesty's Government serving in the Cabinet Office from nil in 1969–70 to eight in 1970–71 at a cost to public funds of £24,200 per annum.
§ The Prime MinisterI explained the initial staffing of this office in reply to a Question by the hon. Member on 18th 194 December, 1969. There has been no expansion beyond this.—[Vol. 793, c. 410.]
§ Sir Ian Orr-EwingIs the Prime Minister aware that since October, 1964, the taxpayers have had to pay for an extra 139 information officers in Government Departments? Does not this figure, with the extra eight in the Cabinet Office, reflect the Prime Minister's desire to manage the news in his own favour at someone else's expense?
§ The Prime MinisterI am sorry to have to correct the hon. Gentleman's figure. The increase since 1964 is not 139, but a higher figure than that. Unfortunately, we do not have a precisely comparable figure for the increase in the information service under the Conservative Government. In those Departments for which figures are available, the figures are higher than the hon. Gentleman suggested. From 1964–69 the increase in the information service under the present Administration has been by 44 per cent. in information officers. In the four and a half years up to 1964 in the same Departments the increase was not 44 per cent., but 59 per cent.
§ Mr. HenigDoes not my right hon. Friend agree that there is a considerable demand from the public for more information, and is not it odd that hon. Gentlemen opposite, who are constantly pressing the Government to give information on all sorts of matters, often when it is difficult, are now apparently arguing that the public should be deprived of information which they want from Ministers?
§ The Prime MinisterNo, Sir, I want to be fair to right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Indeed, I have offered to put Government resources at their disposal to make clear the cost of their programmes, provided they tell us and the country what their programmes are.
§ Mr. ThorpeWill the Prime Minister tell us why he claims credit for building on the basis of Tory extravagance? Is this what leads him to believe, in an unusual burst of immodesty on his part, that he is the lesser of two evils?
§ The Prime MinisterI have indeed used that phrase, and I have not yet met anybody who disagreed with it. What I have succeeded in doing in five and a 195 half years, in addition to meeting the voracious demands for information from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, is to restrain the growth in the information service.