§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list, for 1997–98 and for each subsequent financial year, the amount spent(a) in the United Kingdom and (b) abroad by (i) her Department, (ii) its agencies and (iii) its non-departmental public bodies on (1) providing mobile telephone equipment, including handsets and other associated equipment, (2) telephone calls made using such equipment and (3) telephone calls made using privately owned mobile telephones but subsequently reclaimed by (x) Ministers and (y) staff. [34410]
§ Mr. Ivan LewisThe available information, as contained in the following table, cannot be broken down by amount spent in the UK and abroad, as our payments systems do not enable this. Information on agencies and NDPBs is not collected centrally.
£ Year Line rental/Other expenditure Calls Total 1997–98 117,693.37 52,352.41 170,045.78 1998–99 117,339.61 50,959.11 168,298.72 1999–2000 160,410.62 58,478.47 218,889.09 2000–01 237,861.51 91,335.48 329,196.99 The "Other" expenditure includes the purchase of new handsets, personal hands-free kits, carry cases etc, but it is not possible to provide separate totals for line rental and hardware costs.
Information on calls made from privately owned phones by Ministers and staff could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.