Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will estimate the annual cost to her Department of (a) stationery and (b) postage incurred when sending a ministerial reply to hon. Members; and if she will make a statement.

Information is not available in the form requested. The report published by the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Official Report, 13 May 2014, 17WS) shows that Department for Education Ministers received 16,898 letters from parliamentarians in the 2013 calendar year. We do not keep records of the form in which replies to such letters are sent. As explained by the former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Education and Childcare in the reply given to the hon. Member on 7 July, Official Report Column 151W, most correspondence from hon. Members continues to be received as letters and is replied to in the same format. Ministers do, however, reply by email when they consider it appropriate to do so.