HL Deb 28 June 1994 vol 556 cc40-2WA
Lord Lester of Herne Hill

asked the Chairman of Committees:

Why the House imposes a charge upon the public for copies of the speeches of the members of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords; and what is the basis upon which it fixed a price of £4 per copy in 1984, and increased the price to £5 in 1994.

The Chairman of Committees (Lord Ampthill)

The charge for copies of Law Lords' opinions was introduced in 1984 when responsibility for their production was transferred from an outside agency to the Judicial Office. At that time, it was decided that it was no longer justifiable that the House of Lords should be the only court which made transcripts of its judgments freely available. Copies continued to be provided free to the parties to the appeal and (on request) to members of both Houses, government departments and members of the public who had attended the judgment.

The original price of £4 was established by reference both to the price of other parliamentary papers and to the equivalent price charged in other courts (a typical judgment of the Court of Appeal costs £10), and was intended to cover the costs of reproduction and distribution and to contribute to the administrative costs involved.

The increase to £5 in 1994, made on the basis of a recommendation by the Internal Auditor of the House of Lords, reflects the fact that inflation over the intervening period has been significantly offset by economies in photocopying costs.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill

asked the Chairman of Committees:

What is the cost of providing copies of speeches of members of the Appellate Committee for public distribution.

The Chairman of Committees

It is not possible to provide a precise answer to this question since no distinction is made when copies of Law Lords' opinions are being produced between those copies destined for sale to the public and those that are either made available to those entitled to free copies or kept for reference purposes.

Most of the overall cost of preparing the opinions is accounted for by secretarial time, which is met from the Judicial Office staff budget. The Law Lords, PA and Attendant spend around 25 per cent. of their time on, respectively, checking and copying opinions, while the three personal secretaries to the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary spend around 70 per cent. of their time typing and editing the proofs. The total cost of this staff time is approximately £47,000 per annum. With an average of 65 judgments each year for which opinions are prepared and a standard print run of 135 copies, the staff production costs work out at £5.35 per copy. To this must be added the material costs of paper and photocopying of around 90p per copy, and a notional amount to cover the cost of the Judicial Office staff time involved in selling each copy: say, £1.50. This gives an approximate total cost per copy sold of £7.75 (not including first-class postage, for which no extra charge is made). Therefore each copy sold recovers just under two-thirds of its total cost.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill

asked the Chairman of Committees:

How much revenue the House has obtained from the sale of copies of speeches of members of the Appellate Committee during the period between 1984 and 1994.

The Chairman of Committees

Revenues from the sales of Law Lords' opinions for the years in question are as follows. 1984–85: £2,460; 1985–86: £4,302; 1986–87: £3,412; 1987–88: £3,876; 1988–89: £4,628; 1989–90: £4,962; 1990–91: £5,312; 1991–92: £5,764; 1992–93: £6,136; 1993–94: £8,192. The total for the 10-year period is therefore £49,044.