To ask the Chairman of the Administration Committee what were the quarterly telephone bills for the Palace of Westminster, including outbuildings, for each of the last 10 years; what use has been made of Mercury Communications through least-cost routing; and if he will make a statement.

[holding answer 17 May 1993]: It is not possible to provide details of quarterly telecommunications bills for the Palace of Westminster for the past 10 years. However, the annual bill for telephone messages for the last seven years is as follows:

£
1987	471,000
1988	552,000
1989	561,000
1990	570,000
1991	690,000
1992	599,000

New technology installed in the Palace of Westminster telecommunications exchange in the summer of 1992 included a "least-cost routing" facility. At the same time, 125 of the outgoing lines of the exchange were converted to the Mercury network. These changes allow the automatic selection of the cheapest service for each outgoing message. Since October 1992, approximately 1·1 million calls lasting more than 20,000 hours have been carried on Mercury lines.