Royal Mail

Mr. Weir
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how much his Department spent using Royal Mail in each of the last five years.

David Cairns
The Scotland Office and the Office of the Advocate-General use the Scottish Executive's postal facilities for the majority of outgoing mail and reimburse them for usage. The Offices are unable to accurately split the costs by individual provider. Separately, the Offices use Royal Mail for the transportation of ministerial papers.

The total costs for postage and the transportation of ministerial papers for the last five years was follows:

----------------
|       |£     |
----------------
|2001-02|10,068|
----------------
|2002-03|12,874|
----------------
|2003-04|34,316|
----------------
|2004-05|22,561|
----------------
|2005-06|18,314|
----------------