TELEPHONE CHARGES (Hansard, 13 November 1957)

§ The Postmaster-General (Mr. Ernest Marples)
With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I would like to make a statement about telephone charges.
As from 1st January, 1958, charges for calls will be drastically altered. Most calls now costing 6d., 9d. or 1s. will be reduced to 3d. The majority of charges for trunk calls will also be reduced.
These changes pave the way for full automation in the telephone service, including trunk dialling by subscribers, which will begin at Bristol towards the end of 1958.
Full details are given in a White Paper which will be available in the Vote Office later this afternoon.

§ Mr. Ness Edwards
Before commenting on the right hon. Gentleman's statement or questioning him about his extraordinary pronouncement, may I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, and that of the Leader of the House, to this habit of "leaking". This change has already been announced to the public in a newspaper today. It is quite unfair to the House and to hon. Members for this leaking process to go on. May I draw your attention to the matter Mr. Speaker, 960 and ask the Leader of the House to look into it and to consider what he can do to protect the rights of hon. Members?
With regard to the statement made by the Postmaster-General—

§ Mr. Nabarro
Cheer up.

§ Mr. Ness Edwards
—we want to reserve our position until we have seen the White Paper. The right hon. Gentleman practised this technique with his last statement when he announced increases.
May I ask how far these proposals are an attempt to retrieve the Post Office telephone service from the disastrous consequences of the handling of the Post Office finances both by himself and his predecessor? Is it not peculiar to give as a reason that this is to prepare the way for automation, which will not come until twelve months' time? Does he not agree that the change in charges ought to follow automation rather than the reverse?
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman how much longer would-be subscribers will have to wait for their telephones as a consequence of the £5 million cut in telephone expenditure which has been imposed by the Treasury?

§ Mr. Marples
If the right hon. Member disagrees with the proposed changes when he sees them in the White Paper, no doubt he will move a Prayer against the regulations which I shall lay. As to the second part of his supplementary question, this is the only nationalised industry which is directly responsible to this House. Oliver Cromwell started it off by the Post Office Act. Unlike hon. Members opposite, he thought that a nationalised industry should be run in a democratic way.
These proposals constitute the most sweeping and radical reform since the Post Office took over the telephones in 1912. I thought it only right that the first statement should be made in this House—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—accompanied by a longer White Paper, which explains in detail what the proposed changes are.
The difficulty with right hon. Gentlemen opposite is that they read the newspapers, but never read HANSARD. If they had read HANSARD for 18th July, four months ago, they would have found that in the statement I then made these 961 changes were forecast. This is what I then said: Ordinary local calls will go up to 3d., but from 1st January next this will be offset by a very big extension of the distance over which tins charge will apply."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th July, 1957; Vol. 573, c. 1354.] The House knew of the change more than four months ago. It is scarcely my fault that the right hon. Member chose other parts of my statement on which to question me then.

§ Mr. Speaker
I hope that supplementary questions will be limited on this matter. After all, a White Paper is to be read and understood by hon. Members on this remarkable subject and regulations are to be laid, which will he debatable. I merely say that because I do not want Question Time to become a time for debate.

§ Mr. W. R. Williams
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that only right hon. Members of the respective Front Benches have so far been allowed to comment on this very important statement, I wonder whether you would allow some of us very directly interested in the matter to put supplementary questions?

§ Mr. Speaker
I did call an hon. Member on the Government side of the House and so long as it is not overdone I shall be glad to hear what hon. Members have to say.

§ Mr. S. Silverman
On a point of order of a rather different kind, Mr. Speaker. The Postmaster-General has just said that the House was placed in possession of the salient, basic facts of this matter four months ago. If that is so, is not the right hon. Gentleman today rather abusing the custom of the House in making a special statement after Questions about something which he informed us all about—he says—four months ago?

§ Mr. Speaker
That is not a point of order. I think that the statement today was a little more precise.

§ Mr. John Rodgers
Is my right hon. Friend aware that this statement will cause general rejoicing throughout the country? Could he, however, be a little more specific and tell us exactly what we shall get for our 3d. calls and, also, 962 whether this applies to calls from call boxes?

§ Mr. Marples
It is all in the White Paper. It applies to call boxes in the same way as to private telephones. Some of the examples of savings are really quite remarkable. For example, a call from Westerham to Elstree before the war cost 1s., at present it costs 1s. 6d., and as from 1st January it will cost 3d. The area covered by the 3d. call is at present 80 square miles on average and after 1st January it will be 900 square miles.

§ Mr. C. R. Hobson
While welcoming the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman, who claimed a precedent for a nationalised industry which might be followed by private industry, may I ask whether the White Paper explains the anomaly whereby a distance call costs less than a 4d. call from an ordinary call box? Secondly, is the very large profit that is made on the trunk network now to be devoted to toll calls?

§ Mr. Marples
I think that the hon. Member will find the White Paper is specifically clear. This change does not mean using the profits of the trunk calls but, for the first time, using existing machinery to the full. It is difficult to explain, but perhaps I could give the House an example.
Take the Holborn Exchange, which was the first automatic exchange, having been started in 1927. At present, for a local call the subscriber dials the number automatically and the call is recorded automatically as having cost 3d. If the Holborn subscriber wants to get Watford, although the instrument can mechanically obtain Watford it cannot record a 9d. charge. In fact, it cannot record a 6d., 9d. or 1s. charge; it can record only a 3d. charge. To overcome that, the subscriber has to dial the operator, who connects him to Watford, and the operator records the charge by hand.
To use the machinery to the full, one has either to install machinery which will record a multiplicity of charges or increase the charging area. To install machinery costs millions of pounds, but to alter the charging area costs nothing. From 1958 onwards, for the first time, subscribers in Holborn will be able to dial Watford automatically and the charge will be recorded automatically.

§ Sir R. Grimston
Following the supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. C. R. Hobson), inasmuch as certain local calls from call boxes will cost more than long-distance calls, could my right hon. Friend hold out some hope of a reduction for the purely local call when he has had time to look further into the matter?

§ Mr. Marples
That is another question, but I can tell my hon. Friend that we have ideas on that subject. This operation is the biggest since 1912, and I think it ought to rest on its merits as it stands. I can tell my hon. Friend that the matter to which he has referred is on the agenda, and, without making any commitment, I can say that we shall look into it carefully.

§ Mr. W. R. Williams
Without going into all the anomalies and details, or even going back to the days of Oliver Cromwell, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware that this dual achievement by the oldest nationalised industry in this country meets with the full approval of most hon. Members on this side of the House, and, indeed, I assume, all hon. Members. The dual achievement consists of a reduction in prices when all private industries are putting prices up and the magnificent achievement of having automatic dialling of trunk calls. Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that the House and the country are greatly indebted to the Post Office Research Station for these very magnificent and remarkable achievements?

§ Mr. Marples
I am sorry that only most of the hon. Members opposite were pleased about the reduced charges. I should have thought that all hon. Members would have been pleased about them.
I want to make it clear to the House that this operation has not been brought about by new machinery. It has been brought about by the better use of existing machinery. Machinery can have restrictive practices applied to it, as is often publicised, by labour and also by administration. In this case, I have tried to remove administrative restrictive practices from the machinery. That is where the benefit is derived. It is not a matter of there being new machinery.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. We shall return to this subject, no doubt, in due course.