To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the total cost of his Department's website was in the last 12 months; and how many hits it received in the same period. [104205]

Direct costs for the Ministry of Defence's departmental website: http://www.mod.uk are recorded for expenditure on hardware, contractual support and staff costs for the central MOD website team. Total costs for the financial year 2002–03 are £124,350.Usage of the MOD website began to be measured on a monthly basis in December 1997. The departmental website received 47,076,412 hits in the period December 2001 to December 2002.