Written question asked by Mark Hoban (Conservative) on Friday, 7 November 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 11 November 2008. It was answered by Pat McFadden (Labour) on Wednesday, 26 November 2008 on behalf of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

Home Computing Initiative

Question: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many laptops that were leased to employees under the home computing initiative had been upgraded by employers; and what the average cost of upgrading the laptops was.

Answer: The Department did not require this level of detail on how many laptops leased to employees had been upgraded under the home computing initiative scheme. This information would only be held by employers who ran home computing initiative schemes.That said, very few employers had the chance to run multiple schemes. As the programme was launched in 2004, most schemes had not ended by the time the 1999 tax exemption was removed in March 2006 (as they ran typically for three years). It is very unlikely that many were upgraded following the removal of the tax exemption.

Secondary information