§ 12. Mr. Peter Walkerasked the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the inability of the Post Office to fulfil efficiently many of its services, he will ban advertisements by it.
§ Mr. BennPost Office advertising is now concentrated on recruiting staff and on helping the public to get the most out of the services (e.g. post early for Christmas). Advertising campaigns designed to stimulate certain postal and telephone business as such was stopped some months ago.
§ Mr. WalkerIs the Postmaster-General aware that the reason why "someone, somewhere" is normally waiting for a letter these days is due to the inefficiency of the postal services? Therefore, was there any need to advertise this service earlier in the year?
§ Mr. BennI am sure the hon. Gentleman means his comment to be directed only at me—and I am quite happy to take it—but it will, of course, be read by all the people who work in the Post Office at this time of the year as an attack on them. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Of course it will. It simply is not true to say that the postal services as a whole and the quality of service given have deteriorated over the last 12 months. Our statistics on this, which, naturally, a big Department like this keeps very carefully, prove this to be the case, but, of course, it is true that with 30 million letters to be handled every day—or, at Christmas, one hundred million a day—some will go astray. There are mistakes of this kind 1242 and, on behalf of the Post Office, it is naturally my duty to apologise for those mistakes.