HC Deb 25 April 1968 vol 763 cc468-9
21. Mr. Jopling

asked the Postmaster-General what proposals he has for stopping the decline in use of the telephone by existing private subscribers.

Mr. Mason

The new call charges are designed to encourage greater use of the telephone at off-peak periods when private use predominates, and they are being widely publicised. There is no evidence of a decline.

Mr. Jopling

Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the evidence in paragraph 136 of the Report which shows that there has been a decline? Can the right hon. Gentleman name any other country in the world whose people find they have more and more people to telephone but who use their telephones less and less?

Mr. Mason

On the first point, the latest figures before me show that this has now started to level off, and therefore it is starting to contradict that out-of-date passage in the Report. Secondly, we extended the hours of cheap calls from 6 p.m. in the evening to 8 a.m., a two-hour extension. We have cheap calls on Sunday, and in my recent statement I said that there would be marginally cheaper trunk calls on Saturdays as well.