HC Deb 15 June 1951 vol 488 cc2785-96

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Kenneth Robinson.]

3.59 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)

On personal grounds I am delighted to see the Assistant Postmaster-General on the Front Bench to reply to this debate, but from the point of view of the value of the debate in propounding Government policy, I am bound to say I regret that his right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General is not here in his place. I say that the attitude—because it is a question of attitude rather than of policy which I desire to criticise—is an attitude very much bound up with the personal attitude of the Postmaster-General—an attitude which quite frankly—

It being Four o'Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Kenneth Robinson.]

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

—to my mind compares very unfavourably with the courtesy which the Assistant Postmaster-General always shows to this House and to the public. This matter of the attitude which the Postmaster-General adopts to correspondence received from members of the public was, so far as I am personally concerned, brought to light as a result of a Parliamentary Question which I asked him on 2nd May.

It arose out of an incident which I propose briefly to relate to the House. An employee of the Post Office in Nottingham, Mr. T. A. Norman, took part in a controversy in the local newspaper, the "Nottingham Evening News," on the much disputed and debated subject of the refusal by the Postmaster-General to recognise an association in the Post Office known as the Engineering Officers (Telecommunications) Association. I am not concerned at this moment with the merits of that controversy, but it is now, I understand, not disputed that Mr. Norman was perfectly entitled to express his views on that controversy in the "Nottingham Evening News." However, at the time that was not the attitude of the Post Office, and I regret to have to remind the House that for writing that letter Mr. Norman received an official censure from the telephone manager at Nottingham.

As a result of that treatment, Mr. W. J. Brown, whom hon. Members will remember as a most active Member of this House and who, I venture to prophesy, will return to this House at the next General Election, wrote to the Post Office and, in temporate language, raised this issue. He wrote several times but received nothing but formal acknowledgements declining to go into the merits of the matter. It was in those circumstances that I tabled the Parliamentary Question, to which I have made passing reference, which was replied to by the Postmaster-General on 2nd May.

Perhaps I should refresh the memory of the House with that matter. I asked the Postmaster-General: Why the Nottingham telephone manager has censured Mr. T. A. Norman, a member of his staff, for writing a letter to the local Press on the subject of the refusal of recognition to the Engineering Officers (Telecommunications) Association; and why repeated letters since 9th February, 1951, from Mr. W. J. Brown to the Post Office on this subject have failed to produce any reply other than a series of bare acknowledgements. The Postmaster-General replied: The application, in all good faith, of the rule in question to this case was, in my opinion, wrong and I have cancelled the decision. As to the second part of the Question, under agreement with the Post Office Whitley Council representations from unrecognised associations are not admissible. I asked a supplementary question: Is it not the policy of the right hon. Gentleman's Department to reply to letters from members of the public raising matters of public importance, whether they are recognised by the right hon. Gentleman or not? The Postmaster-General replied: Mr. W. J. Brown, who wrote this letter, was himself a party to the practice whereby such letters should not be recognised. That is a clear misuse of language. He talks about recognising a letter. When I write a letter I do not want it to be recognised but to be answered. I asked a further supplementary question—and this is really the subject which I am raising now: Does that answer mean that a British citizen is not entitled to a reply from a public Department of State? The Postmaster-General replied: In this case a British citizen raised the question of the rights of an officer of my Department. The officer concerned had the right of a personal appeal to me about the position. Instead of doing that, he communicated with a private citizen to take up what is purely a Departmental and union question."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd May, 1951; Vol. 487, c. 1160–1.] I gave notice that I should do what I am doing now and raise the matter on the Adjournment. The interval which has elapsed has elapsed for a reason of which you are well aware, Mr. Speaker—that it sometimes takes a little time to translate into practice the notice which one has given that one intends to raise a matter on the Adjournment.

The practical issue is whether or not a private citizen, whether connected or not connected with a body which the Post Office, for one reason or another, does not recognise, who writes a reasonable letter to a public Department is not entitled to an answer to that letter In this case, the wrongness of the practice adopted by the Postmaster-General is illustrated by the fact that it is now acknowledged that the point which Mr. Brown raised was wholly justified inasmuch as when the matter was investigated by the Post Office, which was done only when a Parliamentary Question was tabled, it was in fact found that a wrong had been done to this man; and, to the credit of the Post Office, that wrong was then put right.

We are, therefore, faced with a case in which it cannot be argued by the Assistant Postmaster-General that the point which Mr. Brown raised was not substantial, since in fact it is now agreed on all sides that the point at issue was one which was rightly raised and that there was a wrong to be put right. It is a matter of some comment that it requires a Parliamentary Question to get a wrong put right, even when that wrong has been drawn to the attention of the Post Office in correspondence by a private citizen. If I may say so in parenthesis, if the attitude were adopted by other Departments that wrongs are to be righted only when a Parliamentary Question is pending, then the list of Questions daily appearing on the Order Paper would have been even more inflated than has been the case in recent weeks.

The point to which I want the Assistant Postmaster-General to direct his mind is why a reasonable letter on a particular injustice should not be dealt with merely because the person who writes it is not an official of a recognised trade union, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will address himself to that question. Perhaps I may say, in parenthesis, that what happened in this case illustrates the public inconvenience which results from the refusal of the Postmaster-General to recognise an association which, whether he likes it or not, represents a substantial proportion of his staff in the grade concerned, but that is a matter which, as the Assistant Postmaster-General knows, is being considered, perhaps without undue speed, by an advisory body, and for that reason I do not propose at this moment to refer to the merits of that matter except in passing.

I raise the subject on the basis not that Mr. Brown represents an unrecognised association, not on the grounds that he happens to be a person of some consequence and standing in the country, but purely on the grounds that he happens to be a British citizen and is as much entitled to approach a Department of State as any other British citizen. In the answer which I read—and I think I should say that I read the full Question and answer in HANSARD and kept nothing back—the Postmaster-General was, no doubt inadvertently, confusing the issue when he started to talk about agreements with Whitley Councils and so on.

It may well be the case that if a private citizen starts to make representations about the wages and hours and conditions of the Post Office staff a reply might well be sent to him expressing inability to enter into controversy with him on those issues; but that is not material to a case in which a private citizen raises a question of a specific injustice to an individual Post Office servant. It is really no answer to say, as the Postmaster-General tried to say, that that Post Office servant had the right to take other steps, such as an appeal to the Postmaster-General. It may well be that that Post Office servant—I do not know whether it is the fact in this case, frankly—lacked the forensic ability to put his case to the Postmaster-General. It may be that he did, but that does not do away with the public interest that injustices should not be done to servants of the State.

I would very respectfully remind the Postmaster-General that his treatment of his individual servants is not a matter solely between him and those individual servants, but concerns the country as a whole, which is, ultimately, responsible for the postal services. Indeed, one may go further, in that, rightly or wrongly—I make no comment about it—it may be that a Post Office servant may, in a particular case, not regard an appeal to the Postmaster-General as a particularly fruitful method of putting his case forward. He is entitled to that opinion. In any case, it does not derogate from the right of the British public to deal with it.

What is extraordinary is to contrast this attitude of the Post Office with the attitude of other Departments of State. An individual citizen can write, as I know, to the War Office and suggest that an injustice has been done to an individual soldier, and the War Office, if a reasonable case is made out, will investigate the matter and give a reasonable reply. So, indeed, will the Prime Minister, who, as I know, receives an immense correspondence raising individual grievances and injustices; and the right hon. Gentleman, with all the colossal burdens which fall upon him, does, I know, in suitable cases have these matters gone into by the Departments concerned. All I am asking is that the Post Office should conduct itself in this matter as, so far as I know, all other Departments of State conduct themselves.

Not only that, but they should follow the policy declared by the Government, because, although I am not putting the matter, as it is not necessary to my argument, on the basis that Mr. Brown wrote on behalf of an unrecognised staff association, but am putting it only on the basis that he is a private citizen, were it to be put on the basis that he wrote on behalf of an unrecognised staff association there is a declaration of Government policy, which I shall quote to the House in a moment, to indicate that, in that capacity, he would be entitled to an answer. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall), who was at the material time Financial Secretary to the Treasury, replying to a debate raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Langford-Holt) on the subject of the recognition or non-recognition of a Civil Service union, said this: It is likewise true that any staff association, including the Association of ex-Service Civil Servants, has the undoubted right to make representations to the Government. A little later he repeated himself and said: What I am saying is that any staff association can now make representations to the Government direct if it wishes, but formal recognition as a national negotiating body—which is quite a different thing—is not accorded to every association."—[Official Report, 12th August, 1947; Vol. 441, c. 234–5.] That is to say, as I understand it, that the right hon. Gentleman, with his habitual clarity of language, said on behalf of the Government that an unrecognised association does not, because it is unrecognised, forfeit the right—which, in any event, its members as individual citizens would have—to make representations to the Government. The Postmaster-General, in the attitude he shows, is falling not merely below the standard of other Departments of State, but below also the standard set by the Government themselves in that statement of policy by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley.

In the ultimate analysis the Postmaster-General, like all Ministers, is a servant of the public. There are moments when right hon. Gentleman have forgotten that fact and have regarded themselves as masters of the public, but those are moments that they would no doubt wish to forget, and of which I have no particular desire at this time to remind them. It is, of course, the constitutional doctrine that His Majesty's Ministers serve not only His Majesty but, through His Majesty, the people of this country.

It is surely fundamental to the ordinary rights of citizens in a free society that those citizens who desire to make representations, to ask questions or to direct observations to Ministers of the Crown, or to Departments, are perfectly entitled to do so. That is particularly so when they desire, whether rightly, as in this case, or wrongly, as in other cases, to draw the attention of Ministers and of their Departments to what they believe to be injustices, whether done to servants of the Post Office or to anybody else.

With great respect, no references to Whitley Councils, and no refinements of argument on the subject of recognition or non-recognition, can, or, I humbly suggest, will be recognised by this House as relieving right hon. Gentlemen of the responsibility to answer reasonably expressed letters from members of the public. I hope that the Assistant Postmaster-General—who, as I began by saying, has always in my experience shown a very proper appreciation of the duties of Ministers of the Crown in this respect—will be able to assure us that his right hon. Friend spoke with the perhaps pardonable inaccuracy that comes to all of us on the spur of the moment in answer to a supplementary question; and that reasonably expressed letters on such matters as an alleged injustice of individuals directed to the Post Office will receive consideration, investigation and a courteous reply.

4.17 p.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Hobson)

I should first like to say that I think the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) stated his case very fairly indeed. I have no need to question at any rate the facts. They are precisely as stated by him. I would, of course, query the fictional side of his argument in his references to W. J. Brown's future victory at the polls; I think that is highly problematical. I consider that this Adjournment Debate has a quite considerable degree of importance, because an important principle is involved. What I wish to do, first of all, is to deal with the facts of the case regarding the individuals who wrote to the Press in the first place, and then to deal with the general principle.

There were three members of the Post Office staff who communicated with the Press in Nottingham. Two of them were members of what we commonly know as E.O.T.A., and one of them was a member of the Post Office Engineering Union. A debate took place in the columns of this local newspaper, and as a result action was taken. I think it was called disciplinary action, but certainly they were censured for taking part in a public controversy with regard to Post Office matters. That punishment or censure was due to the unquestionably wrong interpretation of the local superintendent. After all, this controversy between E.O.T.A. and the Post Office Engineering Union has been going on for a considerable time. Therefore it cannot be claimed that this matter dealt with the internal workings of the Post Office telecommunications system.

Mr. Norman reported this matter to E.O.T.A. The matter was taken up and, as a result, there were letters between E.O.T.A. and the Post Office. The letters from E.O.T.A. were all acknowledged. Then Mr. W. J. Brown, who is the national negotiator, wrote to the telephone manager demanding that the censure should be withdrawn. The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames assumes that because the censure was withdrawn it was due to the fact that he put down a Parliamentary Question. I am not quarrelling with that assumption except to assure him that I have been into this matter thoroughly.

I have found out that a couple of days before the hon. Gentleman put down the Question, the Director of Personnel and Accommodation of the Post Office was being minuted on this problem because the Regional Director, knowing the controversy existing between E.O.T.A. and the Post Office Engineering Union and that it is a ticklish problem, had referred the matter to headquarters. Once headquarters got hold of this, they realised the importance of the matter and the decision was reached by my right hon. Friend that the censure had to be withdrawn. I know the hon. Gentleman well and I do not think he would claim that it was the result of a Parliamentary Question. But even if he did, I should have no quarrel with him and he could, of course, put the view that it was coincidental.

The next point is the question of principle involved in replying to letters from the public by the Postmaster-General. The Post Office practice is to reply to all reasonable letters and I think that is carried out. The extent to which a satisfactory reply can be furnished obviously depends on the contents of the letter. We endeavour, for instance, in the case of telephones not only to say that a telephone cannot be granted but to give the reasons why. There is no constitutional doctrine that Government Departments have to reply, but they would be foolish if they did not and, of course, all Departments do.

That is the case as it affects the ordinary member of the public, but I do not think even the hon. Gentleman would class Mr. W. J. Brown, an ex-Member of this House, as an ordinary member of the public. After all, he is classed as "the General Adviser and National Negotiator of the Engineering Officers (Telecommunications) Association." While it is perfectly true that he wrote to my fight hon. Friend from his private address, it would be stretching imagination a little too much to assume that he was writing in his private capacity. I do not blame Mr. Brown for doing that. As an old trade union official he is entitled to choose, I was about to say his weapons, but certainly to choose his method of approach on these questions in a way which he thinks will give the greatest satisfaction to the people he represents.

What is the practice of the Post Office with regard to letters from unofficial, unrecognised organisations? That is the gist of the debate. It has been the Post Office practice for many years to differentiate between letters from the ordinary public and those which deal with the domestic policy of the Post Office. That implies not only the official but also the unofficial organisations as far as recognition is concerned.

I will tell the hon. Gentleman what the actual rule is. The date of it is 3rd May, 1949. I am stating that at this stage because it is very important. The hon. Gentleman may think that it is as a result of the controversy and the debates that the rule has come into force. The rule is: Representations from an unrecognised association should simply be acknowledged with no promise of any further reply. If the association presses for a reasoned reply, the answer should be that as the association is not recognised by the Post Office it is not entitled to receive a reply to any representation that it should see fit to make. That governs the conduct of officers dealing with the problem. Although the date of the rule is 3rd May, 1949, it is precisely the same practice as was adopted many years ago by the Post Office. I have here a letter on the question of the recognition of the London Postmen's Association in 1932. Here is an extract from the reply: As your association has not been accorded official recognition, it is not possible to accept representations from you. That was in 1932 when there was a National Government in which the Conservative Party was predominant.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

The hon. Gentleman has twice used the word "representations." Does he or does he not distinguish between representations on obviously trade union matters like wages and conditions and representations in which any member of the public refers to alleged injustices?

Mr. Hobson

Most certainly I do, but I should not have thought that the communication by Mr. W. J. Brown came in the latter category. That is where there may be a division of opinion between the hon. Member and myself.

The whole point is that even in 1932 when a so-called National Government had power with a formidable majority and there was a weakened trade union movement, the Government were not prepared to alter the practice for what are, after all, very sound reasons. I speak now not with feeling but certainly with many years of experience of the problem of the multiplicity of unions. To have a multiplicity of unions is absolute dynamite and the matter needs to be very carefully handled or we are likely to get serious industrial repercussions.

I can appreciate the reasons why the decision was made. We have progressed from that stage as a result of debates and probably as a result of the growth of the organisation, and now a Committee has been set up whose terms of reference cover the problem of unrecognised associations. As that Committee has been set up, I think it is just as well that we should leave the matter there.

The decision not to answer letters is a very wise one because the view taken by present and past Postmasters-General has been that once we start to give a reasoned reply to such representations we give the association one of the rights of a recognised association.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Surely not?

Mr. Hobson

I consider that we do. It is pushing the wedge into the doorway. Once we begin entering into discussions as to whether associations can handle grievances of this sort, we are beginning to recognise them. There is no injustice to individuals. A person who is not a member of a trade union or is a member of an unrecognised trade union is perfectly free to make his own representations to the management. The only thing he cannot do is to do that collectively.

I now come to the rather important matter of the quotation from the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) in the Adjournment debate in August, 1947. I have no quarrel with the quotation be- cause it is factual, but I would remind the hon. Gentleman that that Adjournment debate—

The Question having been proposed at Four o'Clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Half-past Four o'Clock.