§ Mr. Menzies CampbellTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take steps to reduce the general level of prices of Her Majesty's Stationery Office publications, particularly Government Green and White Papers andHansard.
§ Mr. BrookeI am satisfied that Her Majesty's Stationery Office is taking all reasonable steps to keep the prices of its publications as low as possible while still meeting its financial targets as a trading fund. In recent years the average price of parliamentary publications, exceptHansard, has risen much less than the increase in the RPI for books.
Hansard is treated exceptionally in that it has long been supported by an annual Vote from Parliament which 445W enables the prices to be set at a lower level than would be necessary to recover the high costs of overnight production. It is this Government's policy to reduce dependence on this subsidy and, while Her Majesty's Stationery Office continues to take steps to reduce the costs involved, recent increases in the price of Hansard have been steeper than for other Her Majesty's Stationery Office publications.