HC Deb 22 November 1995 vol 267 c161W
Mr. Alan Williams

To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what was the cost to grant in aid of the occupied royal palaces in(a) 1990, (b) 1991 and (c) 1992 net of (i) the costs associated with the fire at Windsor and (ii) the costs of the exceptional work started at Windsor in 1987–88. [1321]

Mr. Sproat

[holding answer 21 November 1995]: Costs associated with the fire and costs of the exceptional work were given in my earlier reply on 31 October 1995, Official Report, column 185. The grant in aid net of these factors was:

  • 1990–91: £19.931million
  • 1991–92: £19.71 million
  • 1992–93: £15.53 million

This figure assumes that expenditure on the exceptional work was the same in each of the five years 1986–87 to 1990–91. As stated in the earlier answer, figures for each year are not available.

Mr. Williams

To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what estimate has been made of the cost of providing details of expenditure on the furnishing of directors' apartments in the occupied royal palaces in each year from 1982 to 1991; and how these costs have been arrived at. [1322]

Mr. Sproat

[holding answer 21 November 1995]: It is estimated that extraction of this information would cost about £2,000 in direct additional staff costs. File handling, transport and supervision could double that.

The PSA files have been put away in bulk. It seems from its lists that we would probably need to screen some 200 volumes to identify the right ones before we could extract and present the right information. Even then, we might not find the information in these files and might have to search further. The estimate was built up on the basis of time for each volume depending on how relevant it is found to be.