Re: £300 million?
"Must be bloody expensive printer paper."
For what I hope are obvious reasons the base stock is a security print. That means not only specialist printing techniques but also rigorous control, secure disposition of waste etc. Pads are, or were (it's a long time since I've seen one), personalised to the prescriber which also introduced a good deal of maintenance of prescriber data etc. It all adds to costs.
Nevertheless my previous GP used to use the tractor-fed paper face-down in their office printer, not only wasting money but making a nonsense of the whole security issue.