§ Mr. Spearingasked the Lord President of the Council when he expects publication of outstanding sessional indexes of the Official Report; and if he will make a statement concerning their future publication.
§ Mr. BiffenThe sessional index for 1979–80 is expected to be published in the next few weeks. I regret that the other outstanding index, that for Session 1980–81, is unlikely to be published before mid-1983. This is due to the decision of House officials to concentrate on the volumes covering the current Session. Work on clearing the backlog of volumes covering session 1980–81 will be carried out in the coming Summer and Christmas Recesses; once all these volumes are printed, work on compiling the index can be completed.
Improvements in the publication programme are in hand with the aim of ensuring that volumes are published 738W within three months of Her Majesty's Stationery Office receiving corrected volume copy from the Editor of Debates. This time scale should be in operation at the start of 1983.