asked the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Tourism (i) the total financial allocation paid to the office of the Director of Consumer Affairs since his appointment, (ii) the total (a) budget, (b) publicity budget allocated to this office for 1980 and (iii) the number and grades of all staff attached to this office on a permanent basis.

The total allocation of funds to the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs during 1979 was £26,487. The director's financial allocation for the present year is £95,200. Of this, £28,000 represents his publicity budget.

As to the members and grades of staff attached to the office of the director, I would refer the Deputy to the reply which I gave in that regard to an earlier question on 145 December 1979. As I indicated then, the question of the provision of additional staff is under consideration.

Is the Minister in a position to say whether the publicity budget has been up or down in the last two years?

Since this is the first full year for which there will be a director, obviously it is up.

Of course it is up. But during the course of the debate on the Bill under which this gentleman was appointed comparable lines were drawn between his budget for publicity and that of the Health Education Bureau which had £1 million allocated last year. Is the Minister happy that the kind of money now available is adequate to meet the needs of this office because the director is dealing with a vast number of consumers, many of whom do not even know he is there, to redress any grievance they might have.

I do not think any such comparison could validly be drawn——

There was, by the Minister of State.

There is no question of £1 million or anything even remotely approaching that figure being made to this officer.

He is an anonymous Director of Consumer Affairs.

Is the Minister aware of certain newspaper reports which indicated that the director was refused sanction last year to spend money in relation to the preparation and publication of consumer pamphlets and material? Could the Minister ensure that that kind of sanction would be freely available during 1980?

As far as I am concerned he will get sanction for whatever money is available for him and has been allocated to him.

Thank you very much.

But I cannot give him sanction for anything that has not been allocated to him.

Would the Minister not agree that a couple of thousand pounds or £20,000 odd in terms of consumer expenditure material for all publicity is a rather derisory sum?

That is argument.

It is not a couple of thousand pounds.

Twenty thousand pounds for 3,000,000 people.

9.