§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
§ 11.27 p.m.
§ Sir David Robertson (Caithness and Sutherland)The Clause provides for a sum not exceeding £75 million, and on Second Reading the Postmaster-General told the House that £40 million of that was to be spent in the current year upon improving the telephone service and particularly for getting rid of the waiting list. He also referred to £300 million which would be required to bring the telephone service into a state of efficiency. I think that huge figure almost stunned the House. It certainly had that effect on me. I have been considering this matter since the Second Reading and it seems to me that if that is the cost that Britain has to pay to get rid of the waiting list for telephones, she cannot afford it.
I believe that the telephone service has reached a stage which is not uncommon in many other Government Departments. They are living in the very unreal world which has existed since 1939. During the war we had to provide telephones for defence purposes all over the country. The cost of that did not matter. Saving sixpences when civilisation was at stake was of no importance. However, that bred extravagance, which I acknowledge and with which I do not find fault. The situation continued throughout the war. In the post-war period we have had a sellers' market. We have had to get goods at all costs, including telephones, and from my own experience in the businesses with which I am connected, I know that the telephone department is conducted extravagantly.
§ Sir D. RobertsonThe Postmaster-General says, "Oh," but I will give him an instance. I wanted an extension taken from one point in my room to another because there was a draught. I filled in 726 the forms and made the application, and an official came to survey exactly what had to be done as the result of the movement of my chair from one side of my room to the other, and made a plan. Some days later three men arrived to carry out the work of moving an extension from one side of a small room to another. This is gross extravagance. If that type of thing is going on throughout the service, no wonder we are being called upon to pay millions. I draw the attention of the Committee to the £300 million for telephones to get rid of a waiting list during eight years.
§ The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Hobson)It is not only to get rid of a waiting list, but also to provide for new trunk lines. That was emphasised on Second Reading.
§ Sir D. RobertsonI agree, but I wonder whether these trunk lines are going to be so congested in future as they were during the war and during the immediate post-war period. I suggest that the situation has greatly improved. We all had to wait a long time for trunk calls a few years ago. Now, on most occasions, I can get a call through to the North of Scotland in a matter of minutes, and I think that experience is general.
I ask the Postmaster-General to give serious consideration to the present situation. The sellers' market is passing, and we are meeting sales resistance everywhere. This getting of everything at all costs can no longer continue. When we talk about £300 million, in addition to other millions already sunk in the telephone service, I wonder how that compares with the capital of the Bell Telephone Company in the United States. I do not know what that figure is, but it would be worth looking into.
Let me tell the Committee of a greater extravagance. There are 356 motor vehicles to transport 304 constructional men about the Aberdeen area, which is 99 per cent. outside Aberdeen and includes Orkney and Shetland. These 304 men are being transported about the countryside.
The Deputy-ChairmanI draw the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that Clause I deals with £75 million and he is going beyond that.
§ Sir D. RobertsonI am not going beyond it, it is the Postmaster-General who wants £300 million.
§ Sir D. RobertsonQuite so; I apologise. Of course, the expenditure I am referring to is included in the £75 million, and therefore I submit that I am in order. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes. This money is to be found for existing services.
§ Sir D. RobertsonClause 1 says:
… or for repaying to the Post Office Fund any moneys …already spent. I submit, Sir Charles, with great respect, that I am wholly in order.
§ Sir D. RobertsonI accept your Ruling, Sir Charles, of course, but does it mean that on this money Clause I cannot refer to the extravagance prevailing in the telephone service today?
§ Sir D. RobertsonThe Clause is to provide money for this service and I wish to refer to that in my speech.
§ Sir D. RobertsonI have taken advice on this. I was told that Clause 1 on the Committee stage would be the proper time to raise this matter; Third Reading would be too narrow.
§ Mr. R. V. Grimston (Westbury)I should like to ask for your guidance again on this, Sir Charles. The last few words of Clause 1 (1) refer to repayment to the Post Office Fund of any moneys which may have been used for the purpose of development. Would it not be in order, therefore, to refer to work which has been done extravagantly in the past and to which must be applied money raised under the Bill?.
The Deputy-ChairmanIt might be in order on Second Reading, but now we are dealing only with the Clause.
§ Sir D. RobertsonIf that is so, I must bring my remarks to a close with this very definite repetition that the Postmaster-General must give consideration to the fact that a sum of millions of pounds is being asked for by the telephone service in 1950. If I had the honour of holding his high office, the first thing I should undertake would be an economy drive to stop extravagance.
§ Mr. George Thomas (Cardiff, West)I hope my right hon. Friend is not going to pay undue heed to the demands of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson), because the telephone service is perhaps one of the most vital parts of our commercial and industrial life. In the City of Cardiff, the Post Office has embarked upon the establishment of the largest telephone unit in the United Kingdom. I do not know what this is costing, but I do know that if this money is spent, it is going to be a boon and a blessing to industrial and commercial life in South Wales. The telephone service is possibly one of the best paying propositions of the Post Office. My right hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong.
§ Mr. Hobsonindicated dissent.
§ Mr. ThomasI am wrong, am I? In that case I suggest to my right hon. Friend that by spending a little more, he might find it is the best way to increase profits from this service. But the most important point is that this money shall provide an efficient service for industry and commerce.
§ Sir William Darling (Edinburgh, South)I should like to take part in this discussion if for no other reason than one of curiosity. As the Committee is aware, there were very great extensions to the telephone service throughout the United Kingdom during the war. The ordinary commercial services were proved to be quite inadequate for the demands of Government Departments, the military, and air-raid precautions services. I was a District Commissioner for Civil Defence and I am aware of the enormous developments that took place through that period. It was far more than we had hitherto found necessary in normal peacetime.
729 I hope it is relevant to Clause 1 for me to say that after this monumental expense, none of which has deteriorated like ordinary war stores, we are now required to provide as much as an additional £75 million in peace-time. Many of the things that we established in wartime, such as air-raid shelters and protection of that kind, are now obsolescent, but, with respect to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas), we had in 1939 a telephone service which was adequate for the normal needs of the community. Now we have a great deal of the additional equipment installed during the war still in commission, yet on top of that the Postmaster-General calls for another £75 million.
The Postmaster-General's duty should be to review his existing equipment and bring it into efficient running order. The Postmaster-General is in the hands of a group of highly competent and highly skilled technicians who are running away with this Government machine and spending capital which no prudent private undertaking would spend. He has a simplicity and an urbanity about him, but still one would not expect him to be a victim of this group of men who, quite naturally, are looking for better and wider careers. I ask the Postmaster-General to consider whether the commercial needs of the community demand the expenditure of £75 million on the existing well-established, efficient telephone service supplemented by the additions during the war that I have mentioned. That is what the Postmaster-General has to justify. Has he got an efficient service? Does he need to increase it to this extent? What lies behind these subtle words:
… for raising further money … for developing … postal, telegraphic and telephonic systems …"?I suggest that this is an extension of a Government monopoly which is not too well managed and which is very expensively administered, as I understand it.
§ Mr. H. Hynd (Accrington)I did not intend to intervene, but I am more and more puzzled as this Debate goes on. What do the critics on the opposite benches want? Do they want an extension or a restriction of the telephone service? On the one hand, we are told that the telephone department is 730 extravagant, the implication being that we should restrict its expenditure; and on the other hand we are badgered by hon. Members opposite and told that there must be more rapid expansion of the telephone service. I hope that before this discussion comes to a close, some hon. Member opposite will explain what the Opposition want.
§ Mr. R. V. GrimstonI should like to raise two points which I think are in order. My first point concerns this capital expenditure. Many of us have been somewhat surprised at the figure which the right hon. Gentleman quoted during the Second Reading Debate of £300 million, the sum of £75 million being part of it. It seemed that the capital cost per telephone application was extremely high. During the Second Reading Debate and in response to an interjection of mine, the Assistant Postmaster-General said that this capital expenditure of £75 million plus the rest related not only to the applications which are at present before the Post Office but to a number of applications which might still come in, which number must be purely conjectural, and related also to the laying down of fresh trunk lines, the building of new telephone exchanges and so on.
It is, therefore, extremely difficult to arrive at the capital cost per application. However, I think that we ought to try to arrive at some figure, because the figure which was worked out by the Assistant Postmaster - General sounded quite fantastic. If that was the figure, there would never be any hope of paying the interest charges on the capital outlay. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should go into this question and try to get some sort of approximate figure of the real cost per application. There must be a figure, and it would be interesting to know what it is. I realise the difficulties and the many different questions which have to be considered, but I think that on some occasion, perhaps if we put down a Question a little later on, the right hon. Gentleman might see whether he can give us some figure.
It has been laid down in the Financial Memorandum that the money is to be expended at the rate, roughly, of £40 million per annum, the larger proportion of that to be devoted to the provision of new telephone equipment. The Bill does 731 not lay down any mandatory speed for spending the money. The Postmaster-General may either accelerate or retard the capital expenditure. He will have to come to the House again to ask for more money. In spite of the fact that £50 million worth of telephone equipment is going to the export trade, I have been told that some of the manufacturers of this apparatus are beginning to be short of work and that in some cases it will not be long before short time is worked in some of these factories unless the Post Office does something about it.
Could the Postmaster-General tell us anything about that? As I say, I have heard it, I do not say whether what I have heard is correct or not, but I have heard it from a source which prompts me to inquire whether that is likely to be the situation. I should like to know whether the Postmaster-General intends to increase the orders from the Post Office so as to obviate short time and possibly unemployment in this industry. I think he will agree that it is necessary that this industry should be kept in good condition. It is a tremendous war potential and it must be kept in a condition so that it could expand quickly in time of war. Has the Postmaster-General considered this matter, and if so, what does he intend to do?
§ 11.45 a.m.
§ Mr. Daines (East Ham, North)Surely the hon. Gentleman's argument is a plea for increased expenditure. How does he square that with the remarks of his hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson)?
§ Mr. GrimstonI am not asking for anything. I am referring to a situation which I am told is likely to develop, and I am asking the Postmaster-General, who is responsible, what he is going to do about it. I take no responsibility in the matter. It may be a very difficult situation, and I am asking the Postmaster-General whether he thinks the danger which I foresee is apparent, and if so, what he intends to do about it.
The other point I want to raise relates to telegraphs. A good deal of capital expenditure has been sunk in the telegraph system. A switching system has been introduced, and it seems to me that 732 anything that can be done to get traffic on the telegraph system in return for this capital expenditure is a point which must be pursued. We were told in the Second Reading Debate that the greetings telegram service could not be restored because of the cost of delivery. It has to be done by junior postmen.
I have a suggestion to make, and I should be glad if the Postmaster-General would consider it. This service was very popular. In fact, the Assistant Postmaster-General himself said that it was a service which the public liked very much. Would it not be possible to accept greetings telegrams for delivery by the first post next morning? Anybody who wants to send a greeting for any purpose, such as a wedding or a birthday, should be able to go into a post office and send his telegram with the knowledge that it will be delivered by the first post the following morning.
The Deputy-ChairmanThe hon. Member is going very wide in discussing greetings telegrams on Clause 1.
§ Mr. GrimstonThis was discussed in the Second Reading Debate, and this is a point arising out of that discussion. Of course, if you so rule, Sir Charles, I cannot go any further into the matter, and I bow to your Ruling, but I would submit that this point was raised on the Second Reading. I was putting the suggestion to the Postmaster-General and asking him to consider it.
The Deputy-ChairmanThe Debate on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" can only deal with what is in the Clause.
§ Mr. GrimstonI must bow to your Ruling, of course, but I think the Postmaster-General heard what I said, and I hope that at some time, he will be able to give us the information for which we have asked.
§ The Postmaster-General (Mr. Ness Edwards)The discussion which has taken place on this Clause indicates a sort of split-mind attitude to this problem on the part of hon. Members opposite. I am repeatedly pressed by the opposition, and also by some of my hon. Friends, to provide more and more telephones. An efficient telephone system in this country is vital to our economic 733 success, but what we have been attempting to do, as far as I can see, is to apply to a grown man a suit which was made for a small boy. That is the reason why there is this demand for so much capital expenditure in order to try to put the telephone service in a position to meet the needs of the community.
I think the Opposition should make up their minds either to let me have this money, so that I may do what I can to supply the need for telephones, or to remove the pressure on me to supply telephones to the half-million people in this country who want them. Either we must have increased capital expenditure to meet the demand or hon. Members opposite must try to size up the demand for capital expenditure with the policies they advocate.
§ Mr. R. V. GrimstonI would remind the right hon. Gentleman that we are not denying him this money which he requires for capital expenditure because, as I said at the outset, we do not intend to oppose this Bill. What we have been trying to do is to give constructive suggestions whereby the money can be laid out in order to produce maximum results. That is the point.
§ Mr. Ness EdwardsI appreciate that point, but when the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Sir W. Darling), attacks even the granting of this sum, it does not seem that he is speaking with the same voice as the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. R. V. Grimston).
§ Sir W. Darlingrose—
§ Mr. Ness EdwardsI cannot give way for a moment. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South said he spoke from curiosity. I thought it was a peculiar speech to make. Had he carried his curiosity further and examined the Financial and Explanatory Memorandum on the face of the Bill, he would have found that the point about which he spoke was dealt with there. We have absorbed into the Post Office system £23 million worth of capital expenditure which was undertaken on facilities for civil defence and general defence during the war.
I want next to deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson). I can assure him that there is not an extravagant use of money in the Post 734 Office. I have looked at the complaint he made, before he made it in this House, because he previously made it to me in writing. The area in which the hon. Member lives has a very sparse population. Post Office workers must live in houses where houses are available. If we are not to house them in Aberdeen it means that he will get an even worse development of telephone services in his area than he has now. The housing problem and the sparsity of the population are two of the difficulties which we face in the part of Scotland which he represents.
There are one or two other points with which I want to deal, and the first is in regard to the capital cost per application. That is an extremely difficult figure to work out. I believe the hon. Member for Westbury looked at this problem when he himself was at the Post Office. When considering the amount of capital required to instal the telephone service, one has to take into account the capital cost of building, the capital cost of cables—the most modern cable and not the old-fashioned cable—and the most modern form of automatic switching equipment, so as to get rid of some of the delays about which there have been complaints in relation to the manual switching equipment.
What we want in this country, very largely, is a completely re-cast telephone service in order to meet the modern need for telephones. We can never estimate what the cost of labour will be, what the cost of new building will be, how soon we shall get the automatic switching gear, and all those things involving very expert calculations, but the people whose advice the hon. Member accepted when he was in office have assured me—and I have taken their advice—that it would require the sum I mentioned in the previous Debate.
We are asking for £75 million for the next two years. I think it is a very modest sum to seek in view of the very great need. It means that we shall not satisfy the demand for telephones for some time to come. In order to meet that demand we should need much more money. I know the resistance on both sides of the House to high Government expenditure and one has to balance what the nation can afford with the needs of the community.
735 Another point raised was the fact that there is in some parts of the telephone instrument industry a growing difficulty about getting rid of their products. There are, however, still very substantial markets overseas. I think I should be right to tell the Committee that the help I can give to the telephone industry, and especially those parts of it now feeling a bit of the economic draught, is limited by the amount of capital expenditure which this House votes for me and by the amount the nation can afford. The vital part of the telephone instrument industry in which the Post Office is concerned and in which there is the greatest shortage is that dealing with this automatic switching equipment. Apparently here there is no great surplus.
There is no difficulty in supply with regard to hand instruments and things of that sort; I understand they can be turned out very easily and that the industry could supply us with a greater number than is now being supplied. But it is no use getting the hand and exchange instruments unless we can get the automatic switching gear, and it is no use getting the switching gear unless we can complete the construction of the new exchanges—which brings us back again to the building labour force. Unless we can get on with the building it is no use buying these things to put them in store, simply in order to keep people in employment when those people might be diverted to the building side. I ask the Committee to let us have this Clause and to let us have the £75 million in order to make a start on the job.
§ Mr. John Foster (Northwich)I want to add my plea that the money should be wisely spent. There are one or two small things in the telephone service to which I think, a slight diversion of the capital expenditure could be made. In most countries they allow a longer flex for the telephone instrument than is allowed in England; England is the only country in the world where the flex is so short—a very few feet. I have an idea that if a longer flex were allowed it would lessen the need for extensions. In America, for instance, one can have an instrument round one's neck and plug it in in various rooms. There is another system in France altogether; in France they provide a flex which is really long— 736 30 to 40 feet—which one can wind up the stairs and take into the rooms upstairs. If the right hon. Gentleman would spend money on buying longer flex I believe that would be an assistance. In addition, I wonder if he would spend money on giving operators some sort of a number. In America we find—
The Deputy-ChairmanI do not think the hon. Member was here when I gave my previous Ruling. He cannot discuss that point on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
§ Mr. FosterI am trying to urge the right hon. Gentleman to spend sums of money on giving operators a number and I thought that was in Order.
§ Mr. Shurmer (Birmingham, Sparkbrook)I do not know whether I shall be in Order in asking the Postmaster-General a question about party lines in the telephone service. I spent many years in the telephone service before the Conservative Party got me the sack in 1926 because of a speech I made. These party lines give people an opportunity to share a telephone. The question I want to ask is whether there is any chance of exemptions being allowed to certain people in the policy of compelling them to accept party lines. The point is that members of the Birmingham City Council—there are two members—
§ 12 noon.
§ Mr. James Hudson (Ealing, North)I am sorry you Rule so strictly, Sir Charles, but I must observe your Ruling.
§ Mr. HudsonI only know that now I cannot refer to more flex for the Opposition. I wanted to support their plea for flex, for I should like to give them all the flex possible. They have taken enough rope today—
§ Mr. ShurmerTo hang themselves.
§ Mr. Hudson—in this discussion to hang themselves a good many times. I support the Postmaster-General. I think 737 it is necessary for someone on these benches, from which have come some of the demands pressing the Post Office into considerable extension of expenditure, to support my right hon. Friend when he proposes to make such an extension. I have heard with resentment hon. Gentlemen opposite calling for a cut in the capital expenditure on these necessary developments. I make my protest the more vigorously because they set themselves up as the special friends of commercial enterprise and expansion. If anyone should be glad at such proposals as those that are now before the Committee, hon. Members opposite should be. Although the flex may not be given to them, at any rate they have provided rope themselves, and we shall use it with great advantage when we speak about these things in the country.
§ Sir D. RobertsonThere seems to be some misapprehension among hon. Members opposite, and particularly on the part of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. J. Hudson), about what it is we desire. We desire to give the Postmaster-General his Bill and to help him in every possible way; and we want our constituents to have the telephones which they have been wanting for years, and particularly the farmers in the far north; but we want it done economically.
In the speech I made just now, I was drawing the attention of the Postmaster-General to the fact, which, I think, he acknowledges, that since 1939 we have been living in abnormal times. I excuse the extravagance of the war because it was justifiable, and I can understand some of the extravagance of the immediate post-war days when there was a sellers' market, but I warn the Committee today—I think it is my duty to do so—that this passion for getting goods at any price, including telephones, cannot any longer continue. We can afford only the things we can pay for. I am simply sounding a note of caution today, and that is all my hon. Friends are doing, too.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.