§ Mr. Clayasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will publish an estimate of the amount of money spent advertising the sale of British Gas for privatisation.
§ Mr. Peter MorrisonIt is not the practice of Her Majesty's Government to publish the sums paid to individual advisers or contractors in a privatisation. Overall marketing costs to the Government, which included the share information office, prospectus printing and despatch and the customer mailing as well as the advertising, were £35 million before VAT.
It was money well spent. The activities involved played a vital role in preparing the market prior to setting the price for British Gas shares. A change of just one penny in the share price was equivalent to £40 million.