Printing Costs (Hansard, 19 April 1993)

§ 35. Mr. Steen
To ask the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, as representing the House of Commons Commission, what proportion of the expenditure of the Commission goes on printing for the House.

§ Mr. Beith
The estimates for 1993–94 include provision of £18.6 million for expenditure on printing and publications, most of which is incurred in the supply of parliamentary papers.
This represents some 18.5 per cent. of the total estimates for House of Commons administration and works services for the year.

§ Mr. Steen
Clearly, printing costs have gone through the roof. While we expect that other bodies should manage their affairs efficiently and run them more cheaply each year, why is it that each year we run our own more expensively? Why do we allow this bureaucracy to go on and on increasing? As it costs £200 or more for each oral question to be answered, including this one, why should there not be a limit to the amount that hon. Members can spend each year on questions? While the right hon. Gentleman is looking at questions, will he also look at the bureaucracy of the House and the Serjeant at Arms Department?

§ Mr. Beith
Any limit on the ability of hon. Members to ask questions would be very controversial and a matter for the Procedure Committee and not for the Commission, which provides the services necessary for the House to do its job. The House printing requirements are unusual in that there is a large amount of overnight printing of Hansard and other parliamentary papers. Discussions are taking place now as to how to carry out that work most efficiently. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will find that that will lead to a considerable containment of the costs.

§ Mrs. Dunwoody
Would the right hon. Gentleman like to suggest, both to the Government and to his fellow Members, that one easy way of cutting down on the amount of paper that we produce would be to return to the habit of Ministers taking responsibility for their own questions and their appearance in the Official Report instead of occasionally allowing vast, pointless and frequently opaque replies to be printed in Hansard?

§ Mr. Beith
I hope that the hon. Lady's question will be noted on the Front Bench, as Ministers alone can act on it.