§ 36. Mr. Prenticeasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance whether he will take steps to reduce the delay of seven weeks which now occurs when a postal draft for benefit is lost or goes 24 astray before a fresh draft is issued to the claimant.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterI am afraid it is not practicable to reduce the period of seven weeks which is required to discover whether a postal draft has been cashed, and if so by whom. My local officers have, however, discretion to replace a draft reported as not received at any time if the circumstances appear to them to justify such a step, for instance, on grounds of hardship.
§ Mr. PrenticeQuite apart from the ground of hardship, does the Minister recognise that this will inevitably cause much annoyance and inconvenience to people in these circumstances—as in the case of one of my constituents, about whom I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman recently? Does not he think that the Post Office could be asked whether the seven weeks' period it requires—I understand that it is the Post Office which needs that period in order to make inquiries—could be reduced in order to reduce the delay?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterMy answer results, among other things, from discussions with the Post Office, which, as the hon. Member says, is involved. He will appreciate the magnitude of the problem when he recalls that about 35 million postal drafts are cashed in the course of a year at post offices all over the United Kingdom. It is not a simple operation, and it is one in which the security of public money is involved.