§ Mr. Lawsonasked the Minister for the Civil Service, pursuant to his Written 27W Answer to the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Park) Official Report, 9th March, columns 549–51, what would be the savings in capital cost and manpower costs in the Official Report and other parliamentary papers were all printed in a uniform size and on uniform equipment, and that size were (a) Royal Octavo, (b) Crown Quarto, (c) large Royal Octavo, (d) A4 and (e) A5, respectively.
§ Mr. Charles R. MorrisThe savings in capital and manpower costs, at August 1976 prices, of producing all parliamentary papers in a standard size as opposed to the present range of sizes are detailed below:
Savings Capital Manpower per annum £ £ Royal Octavo 360,000 87,000 Large Royal Octavo 360,000 87,000 A4 805,000 256,000 A5 805,000 87,000 Extra Cost Crown Quarto 120,000 — The figures are based on using computer typesetting equipment and lithographic printing machines.
Smaller page sizes than A4 incur greater labour costs in the plate-making and finishing departments because there are more pages and sections to handle. In addition, Crown Quarto will require additional machine capacity as it would probably require printing in 32 page sections as opposed to 64 for the other smaller sizes.