§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what the cost of advertising by his Department has been for each year since 1979 and for each of the last 12 months.
§ Mr. Gummer[holding answer 16 December 1993]: In the financial year 1991–92, my Department spent £815,118.06 on advertising; in the financial year 1992–93, 364W it spent £6,929,637.89 on advertising. However, before the financial year 1991–92, figures are not available for advertising alone. In addition, information relating to the financial years before 1979–80 and 1984–85 cannot be obtained without disproportionate cost. The total publicity expenditure for each financial year from 1985–86 to 1992–93 was:
£ million 1985–86 3.5 1986–87 4.2 1987–88 4.8 1988–89 6.9 1989–90 131.5 1990–91 7.5 1991–92 2.7 1992–93 213.4 1 The figure for 1989–90 includes publicity costs associated with water privatisation and community charge. 2 The figure for 1992–93 includes publicity costs associated with the CO2 reduction campaign "Helping the Earth" and the introduction of the council tax. For the financial years 1985–86 to 1990–91 inclusive, the figures also include associated staff costs for my Department, including agencies. Before 1991–92, expenditure was not broken down between different publicity media.
The cost of publicity advertising per month for the past 12 months has been:
£ December 1992 nil January 1993 3,311.74 February 1993 3,120,031.18 March 1993 3,236,235.92 April 1993 475,506.00 May 1993 1,394.00 June 1993 1,128.00 July 1993 780,047.00 August 1993 nil September 1993 257.33 October 1993 3,493,327.30 November 1993 347,246.71 These costs include creative and production charges, value added tax, and other levies as paid.
The costs given for the months above relate to the month in which the invoice was processed for payment; in some cases the advertising may have appeared some time previously.