§ 5. Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he will give the total costs of the running of his former Department which ended on 1st October, 1969, on the setting up of the Post Office Board, and his present Department; and to what extent there has been a saving in administrative costs since 1st October, 1969, due to the ending of his being responsible for all matters pertaining to the day-to-day running of the Post Office.
§ Mr. ChatawayNo meaningful comparison is possible between the cost of 1017 running the Post Office prior to 1st October, 1969, and the cost of running my Ministry subsequently. The functions of the two Departments are quite different.
§ Mr. LewisIs the right hon. Gentleman not aware—he should be, from looking at the Order Paper today—that he has lost two-thirds of the work which former Postmasters-General did, because all day-to-day administration has been taken away from him? Therefore, he must have saved a lot of money. Is it not about time that his Department was wound up and put into the Department of the Environment, thus cutting out all this waste of money—on which, again, we had promises from the Government which have never been implemented?
§ Mr. ChatawayI have an enormous regard for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, naturally, but although, as I have explained to the hon. Gentleman, there is no possibility of making meaningful comparisons, for what it is worth, the administration expenses of the "old" Post Office in the last six months of its life were £194 million, and the administration expenses for my own Ministry in a comparable six months were about £500,000.