HC Deb 19 April 1972 vol 835 cc477-8
1. Mr. Sydney Chapman

asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will issue a general direction to the Post Office Corporation to encourage the use of postal codes as a substitute for writing the name of the town, village or district in view of the fact that it is unnecessary to put both in an address.

18. Mr. Cormack

asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will give a general direction to the Post Office Corporation so to design its postal codes as to preserve to the fullest possible extent the individual names of smaller towns and villages.

The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications (Sir John Eden)

No, Sir. The form of postal addresses is a matter for the Post Office.

Mr. Chapman

It gives me great pleasure to be the first in the House to congratulate my right hon. Friend on his new and important post and also on becoming a member of the Privy Council. May I put it to him that whatever feelings the public may have about the postal codes—and they are considerably mixed—it is absurd to expect people to put both the full postal code and the full address on the mail they send?

Sir J. Eden

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks about me. I think it is necessary to continue to write the full address primarily as a safeguard but also because it will be needed in any event for parcels and packets.

Mr. Money

Will my right hon. Friend accept that the matter goes further than that? Although postal codes may be a necessary device for the convenience of the Post Office, their total acceptance is really getting us far too near 1984. To reduce the House of Commons to SW1A 0AA is creating a battery hen situation as far as we are concerned.

Sir J. Eden

The postal codes are being introduced and the Post Office is anxious to see their use adopted as widely as possible because they carry with them real prospects of economy in operation.

21. Mr. Charles R. Morris

asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what progress has been made by the Post Office Corporation in the introduction of postal coding; and what estimate he has made of the expenditure involved, which he has sanctioned.

Sir J. Eden

The Post Office tells me that it has introduced codes for about 16 million of the country's 20 million addresses at a cost of about £4½ million.

Mr. Morris

I thank the Member for his reply, but is he aware that only 13 out of a planned 100 sorting offices are equipped with machinery for scanning postal codes and that this situation tends to convince people that it makes little difference whether or not they use the postal codes? Will he give a firm target date for the completion of the postal code system?

Sir J. Eden

I am aware of what the hon. Gentleman says in the first part of his question. On the last part of his question, the Post Office aims to complete the postal code programme by this year.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

Will my right hon. Friend, whom I congratulate on his new appointment, tell us whether it makes any difference to put the postal code on an envelope?

Sir J. Eden

So far as it is possible to adopt the practice of writing the postal codes on the addresses, this will enormously facilitate the mechanical sorting of letters, speed up delivery and produce economies in the Post Office.