HC Deb 12 May 1971 vol 817 cc356-7
9. Mr. Waddington

asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what steps he proposes to take as a result of the recommendation of the committee of inquiry into the postal pay dispute that the Post Office should be split into two separate corporations.

Mr. Chataway

I have noted the Committee's comments, but I do not believe that there would be advantage in making so fundamental a change to the structure of the Post Office at this stage.

Mr. Waddingon

Would the Minister agree that the Post Office Corporation is an unnecessarily vast and unwieldy organisation and that no useful purpose can possibly be served by trying to run two entirely different Post Office functions, posts and telecommunications, under one board?

Mr. Chataway

Without entering into argument with my hon. Friend, I would say that whereas there was a case for creating two separate corporations before the 1969 Act, I do not see any gain certain enough or large enough to justify further legislation and a further upheaval now.

Mr. Atkinson

Would the Minister reconsider his answer to me earlier when I said that the award to the postmen did not warrant an increase in stamp charges of 92 per cent., namely from five old pence to four new pence? The answer he then gave was that he had inherited a gross deficit. Is this not because of the separation of the services, and nothing to do with the wage award? Therefore, will he now be honest and answer the U.P.W. criticisms which accuse him of telling the Chairman of the Board that he must exaggerate the price increase to poison the mind of the public against wage rises in the public sector?

Mr. Chataway

There has been no exaggeration at all by the Board about the effect of wage increases, and I do not believe that the Hardman Committee, majority or minority reports, suggested that there had been. Certainly the deficit is in no way due, as the hon. Gentleman suggests it is, to the separation of the two services.