asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to which firms his Department has awarded contracts for computer hardware for each year since 1984; and what was the value of each contract.

For reasons of confidentiality, it is not possible to divulge the value of individual contracts. I am able to say however that contracts with a value in excess of £10,000 for computer hardware have been awarded to the following suppliers in the year indicated:

	Year
Access Data Communications	1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87
ACT Ltd.	1984–85
Apricot UK	1985–86, 1986–87
Aylesbury Computer Group	1986–87
Blackwell Technical Services	1984–85, 1986–87
Camtec Electronics	1984–85
Case Communications	1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87
Casu Micros	1984–85
Complete Computer Systems	1986–87
Dowty Information Systems	1986–87
GEC	1984–85
Hewlett Packard	1986–87
IBM	1985–86
ICL	1985–86
Intelligent Interfaces	1986–87
McDonnel Douglas	1985–86
MBS Computer Group	1986–87
ME Electronics	1986–87
Microdata	1984–85
Microfin	1984–85
Norbain Micros	1985–86
Pericom	1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what his Department has spent on (a) computer hardware and (b) computer software for each year since 1984; and what is the projected expenditure for 1987.

In my Department records of computer hardware and software contracts are not kept in a form that permits this question to be answered as specified without considerable effort. It is, however, possible to provide details of capital and running costs expenditure as follows:

1. Capital expenditure on computer hardware was:
	£ million
1984–85	3·4
1985–86	4·4
1986–87 (forecast)	3·4
1987–88 (forecast)	5·3

2. Running costs expenditure on computer hardware, software and consumables was:
	£ million
1984–85	0·9
1985–86	1·5
1986–87 (forecast)	1·8
1987–88 (forecast)	2·5

In broad terms, running costs expenditure is made up of hardware maintenance (70 per cent.) software licences and maintenance (20 per cent.) and consumables (10 per cent.)