POSTAL SERVICES (Hansard, 10 November 1964)

§ 31. Mr. ROBERT COOKE
To ask the Postmaster-General what steps he proposes to take to improve the efficiency and profitability of the postal service.

§ The Postmaster-General (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn)
With permission, I will now answer Question No. 31.
I have now undertaken a preliminary review of the financial situation which I inherited in the Post Office.
As far as the telecommunications side is concerned, the revenue is buoyant and the expectation is that this will remain broadly on target.
As far as the postal services are concerned, the loss in 1963/64 was £7.8 million as contained in the accounts issued last July.
The estimated loss for the current year published in "Post Office Prospects" last March was £12 million.
This, however, is not the whole picture. The latest estimate available to me suggests that the loss in the current year will be £16 million and for 1965/66, £21 million on the postal services alone.
In addition to this, forecasts prepared on the assumption of an annual growth in gross domestic product and wages of 4 per cent. show a shortfall below the 8 per cent. return target on postal services amounting to about £100 million in the five year period 1963/64 to 1967/68. The latest forecasts suggest that this gap might amount to £120 million.
The House will realise the grave implications of this for the efficiency as well as the profitability of the postal services.
838 I shall be making a fuller statement soon on this subject but I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me this early opportunity of making this preliminary report to the House.

§ Mr. Cooke
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for answering my Question, though I did not receive any notice that he would use any special procedure in order to answer it and to make a long statement at the end of Questions. Indeed, I had told the Table I would like the Question deferred until next week if it were not reached in its proper place. I saw the right hon. Gentleman making signs to me across the House and I now understand what they were about.
I am sure that the House was interested in the figures he gave and I hope that he will be able to give an assurance that to get the postal services on to an even keel he will not starve the telecommunications service by taking away their profits and thus depriving them of the proper capital for improvement.

§ Mr. Benn
I have already dealt with the telecommunications in my Answer. I think that the hon. Gentleman ought to address himself to the problem which confronts him and his right hon. Friends—that of leaving an incoming Government with a deficit which may well amount to £120 million, which explains many of the difficulties of the postal services which have been the subject of a great deal of legitimate complaint to the Post Office, and which, inevitably, will require further consideration. Unless investment is kept up on the proper basis, and is available for postal services and the pay of postmen is properly treated, it is impossible for the service to be maintained on the efficient level which the public are entitled to have.

§ Mr. William Hamilton
To what extent could this problem have been avoided if the previous Government had had the courage to put up the prices as they ought to have done, had the election not been imminent?

§ Mr. Benn
The problem is a more fundamental one than my hon. Friend suggests. If Mr. Bevins had told the House of Commons of the position, that would at least have been an advantage. 839 As late as 25th July, after the accounts were published, in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) he said he had no intention of raising postal charges, despite these facts, which must have been known to him.

§ Miss Pike
The right hon. Gentleman gave no indication that he would answer this Question at this time, despite his signs across the Chamber to my hon. Friend. Would he in future please give every assurance that he will observe the usual courtesies?

§ Mr. Benn
The hon. Lady is not very familiar with the proceedings of the House if she is surprised, based on her experience in the last 13 years, that a Question put down is answered by the Minister. It was in view of the importance of this Question that I decided to answer it at the end of Question Time. My private secretary tried to get in touch with the hon. Member and tell him and I also signalled to him to show that this would be done. If a Member puts down a Question the Front Bench opposite cannot be surprised if it is answered.

§ Mr. Grimond
Are the figures that the right hon. Gentleman has given net figures? Post Office accounts are somewhat complicated. Could he give the House any figures by which we can compare the prices charged for postal services in this country with those in other countries?

§ Mr. Benn
On the second point, I should have to make inquiries to give satisfactory comparable figures. On the first point, I gave these figures as clearly as I could. The actual loss to postal services was £7,800,000 last year, will be about £16 million this year and £21 million, it is estimated, next year. The figure of £120 million is the degree to which the postal revenue will fall below the target set by the right hon. Gentlemen opposite based upon the 8 per cent. return to the Treasury, which was laid down by the Opposition when they passed the Post Office Bill. This put the Post Office accounts on to a commercial or semi-commercial basis. This £120 million relates to the 8 per cent. which the previous Chancellor required from the Post Office. Of course, the loss is a mounting loss, in any case, whichever way you look at it.

§ Mr. Emery
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Could you tell the House whether, if an hon. Member goes to the Table and asks for his Question to be postponed as it has not been reached by 3.15 p.m., it is in order that that Question should be answered without notification to the hon. Member, who may well have left the Chamber, not expecting that it would be answered after 3.15 p.m.?

§ Mr. Speaker
Once a Question is on the Paper the Minister can answer it, if he so desires. That is the rule.

§ Mr. K. Lewis
Further to that point of order. May I ask whether the Minister is entitled, without giving notice, to answer a Question after the period allowed for Questions—that is, after 3.30 p.m.—when that Question has not been reached on the Order Paper?

§ Mr. Speaker
He can do it if he has the leave of the Chair. At this moment I do not wish to investigate whether the Chair could refuse it. I have not considered it. It is not a practice to be wholly discouraged as Question Time is made much slower if Ministers have to give long Answers in the middle of Question Time.