Crown Suppliers

HC Deb 18 May 1990 vol 172 cc565-6W

Mr. Leigh

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the trading results of the Crown Suppliers.

Mr. Chope

The Comptroller and Auditor General has today laid before the House the annual accounts for the Crown Suppliers for 1989. TCS recorded a deficit on its ordinary activities of £2.5 million on a turnover of £165 million. I have placed in the Library a copy of the chief executive's report. He says that a surplus would have been made, as in previous years, but for the reduction in turnover of £57 million which resulted from the transfer to other Government Departments of activities which are not to be privatised, with insufficient time available in the period to make commensurate reductions in overheads. Sales for the first quarter of 1990 were above budget, and the business has been restructured to prepare it for privatisation.