HC Deb 04 May 1994 vol 242 cc547-8W
Mr. Milburn

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will estimate the cost of employing consultants in connection with privatisation programmes in which his Department has been engaged since 1980.

Mr. Aitken

The only privatisation programme for which information on the use of consultants can be made available without disproportionate cost and effort is that in connection with the proposed privatisation of the royal dockyards at Devonport and Rosyth, about which my right hon. and learned Friend made an announcement on 18 October last,Official Report, columns 39–41. I refer the hon. Member to the answer I have given today to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson).