§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Minister for the Civil Service whether he will give for the latest most convenient stated date the actual or average amount of envelopes purchased and/or used by all Government Departments; what was the cost and his estimate of the savings to the Exchequer if stick-on labels and re-use of all envelopes became Government policy; and whether he will consider this for all 575W public authorities where the Government have powers of action and/or advice.
§ Mr. Charles R. MorrisI can speak only for the Civil Service, where it is already Government policy to aim for the maximum possible economy in the use of stationery. For example, Government Departments are urged to use "Economy Labels" whenever this would be appropriate.
Total expenditure in 1974 on envelopes of all kinds, including wage packet envelopes, etc., amounted to £3.4 million, purchasing roughly 1,600 million envelopes. £250,000 was spent on some 200 million economy labels.
For internal mail there is extensive reuse of envelopes, but for mail sent through the post the use of economy labels is often precluded by the requirements of automatic sealing and inserting machines which cannot handle envelopes with gummed labels.