To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster pursuant to the Answer to the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst of 2 July 2008, Official Report, column 1003W, on departmental press, if he will (a) estimate the cost of answering the Question and (b) set out the cost assumptions on which that estimate is based. (225555)

The information requested by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) cannot be separately identified on the Cabinet Office’s accounting system. To seek to identify the costs involved would require consulting individual budget holders across the Department who in turn would have to identify relevant expenditure in order to obtain a total for the Department. The Department estimates that the cost of obtaining this information would exceed the disproportionate cost threshold as stated by my hon. Friend the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury on 28 November 2006, Official Report, column 87WS.