HC Deb 20 January 2003 vol 398 cc75-6W
Norman Lamb

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much producing his Department's latest Annual Report cost; how many copies were printed; how many copies of it were sold at its cover price; to whom copies of the report have been provided free of charge; and how many copies were provided free of charge. [90882]

Mr. Straw

Production of the 2002 Foreign and Commonwealth Office Departmental Report cost approximately £11,000. which covered design, photography, indexing and proof-reading expenses. Other costs of printing and publication are met by the publishers, The Stationery Office Ltd. (TSO), and do not fall to government. TSO charged the FCO £23,923 for supplying 1,403 copies for distribution to Foreign Office Posts abroad and internal Foreign Office Departments. TSO makes its own commercial decisions on how many further copies to print for sale. To date TSO have sold 351 copies. In London, about 20 copies of the report were provided free of charge to journalists and foreign Embassies. Others accessed the electronic version of the report available on the FCO website. We do not hold information centrally about copies distributed free of charge by Posts.