§ Mr. ClappisonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what his Department's spending on official publications was for 109W (a) 1996–97, (b) 1997–98, (c) 1998–99, (d) 1999–2000 and (e) 2000–01 and the planned expenditure for 2001–02. [141456]
§ Ms Beverley Hughes[holding answer 11 December 2000]: The following figures for spending on official publications include the costs incurred by the Department in publishing, preparation, production and purchase of copies for official use. Where the Department makes use of a private sector publisher the publishing, printing and design costs are generally met by the publisher as part of their acceptance of the risks of publication.
- (a) The former Department of the Environment spent £1,178,754 in 1996–97; no figures are available for the former Department of Transport, which had no central management of publications production.
- (b) to (d) Expenditure for subsequent years was:
- 1997–98: £2,007,506
- 1998–99: £2,280,993
- 1999–2000: £3,449,439.
- (e) Expenditure from 1 April to 12 December 2000 was £2,794,622.
DETR does not make specific plans for future expenditure on publications, as this is only one of the media used in public information work. The balance among media is decided on a case-by-case basis for each information project.
§ Mr. ClappisonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list each new publication issued by his Department since 1997 and what the total cost to the Department is of each publication. [141459]
§ Ms Beverley Hughes[holding at answer 11 December 2000]: DETR has a very wide range of policy responsibilities and therefore publishes a large number of publications. The cost of tracing and listing the total costs of each individual publication would thus be disproportionate. A list of the titles of the main publications produced through DETR's Directorate of Communication between February 1997 and November 2000 has been placed in the Libraries of the House.