§ Mr. CLELANDasked whether a working agreement has been come to between the Post Office and the National Telephone Company with regard to the Glasgow telephone area; and, if so, whether such agreement contains any provisions safeguarding the existing staff who may be displaced by reason of its operation; and, if not, why the precedent recently set by the Board of Trade in the matter of working agreements in the case of private railway companies has not been followed by his Department?
§ The POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. Sydney Buxton)My hon. Friend is, I think, under a misapprehension in regard to this matter. The arrangement concerning the Glasgow area, which will, I hope, be very shortly concluded, has for its main object to facilitate the expansion and efficient working of the telephone system in Glasgow, and to remove the obstacles to free development which would otherwise exist during the period of transition between now and 1912. There is, therefore, no reason to suppose that it will lead to a reduction in the total staff employed. On the contrary, I anticipate that it will in all probability lead to increased employment, on the two systems taken together, both of construction and of maintenance staff, in order to carry out the changes proposed, and for the subsequent development of the service. I have already informed the National Telephone Company that it is my intention to provide for the additional work on the Post Office system which may arise from the transfer of exchange lines from the company's system, by employing on it operators and maintenance men whose services the company may no longer 1368 require. My hon. Friend will thus see that the arrangement now in question differs entirely in kind and in purpose from the arrangements for working union between railway companies, to which reference is made in his question. Those arrangements have primarily in view the reduction of working expenses, while the aim of the arrangement between the Post Office and the company is to enable the extension of the telephone system to proceed on sound lines with advantage both to the staffs engaged in operating, maintenance, and construction, as well as to the public who use the service.
§ Mr. WATTMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he and his Department realise that it is in the interests of the Post Office that these experts be not. scattered?
§ Mr. BUXTONI realise that to the full, and I have explained to the House on several occasions that I am endeavouring to do what he suggests. I have already come to an arrangement with the Telephone Company in Glasgow, and I hope to be able to come to an arrangement in other parts of the country in order that construction should be carried on consistently and efficiently, and that the staff to which my hon. Friend refers may not be scattered.