asked the Secretary of State for Employment (1) what percentage of the average industrial wage was represented by the retail price of a bottle of whisky, a pint of beer, and 20 cigarettes in 1945, respectively; and what percentage of the average industrial wage is represented by the retail price of each of these items at the most recent date for which figures are available;(2) what would be the average retail price of a bottle of whisky, a pint of beer and 20 cigarettes if they had increased at the same rate as average industrial wages between 1945 and the present time.

The information is as follows:The payment of unemployment benefit by computer on behalf of DHSS has been introduced progressively since 1969 and extension of this system to the whole country by 1982 will produce further savings in my Department's costs of the order of £2 million.The Manpower Services Commission is developing SPECTRUM, a scheme for processing management and statistical information by computer in respect of special programmes which it administers. This is expected to produce savings of £180,000 per annum by 1984–85.Within the DE group several pilot computer schemes are under way. These include CAPITAL (Computer Assisted Placing in London), the payment of training allowances to trainees and JUVOS a joint DE-MSC project for the computerisation of the collection and compilation of unemployment and vacancy statistics. Until evaluation of these pilot schemes has been completed no firm estimates of eventual savings are available.