HC Deb 14 March 1977 vol 928 cc26-7W
Mr. Lawson

asked the Minister for the Civil Service, pursuant to his Written 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. Morris

The 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.