§ 12. Mr. James Hillasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will give a general direction to the Post Office to ensure that combinations of stamps are treated in the same way by the sorting machines as single stamps of the same total value.
§ Mr. ChatawayI understand from the Post Office that a letter with any combination of stamps equal to the first-class rate is treated as first class.
§ Mr. HillIs my right hon. Friend aware that a letter in The Times pointed out that an envelope bearing a 2½p and a ½p stamp would go by second-class mail? I have checked this with the Post Office in the House of Commons and I have been told categorically that there is 388 a metallic substance in the 3p stamp which the processing machine can detect, whereas there is no such metallic substance in stamps of lower denominations.
§ Mr. ChatawayI am afraid that that is not correct. I believe there was a reply from the Post Office to that letter in The Times giving the assurance that that combination of stamps would be detected by the machine as first-class mail and that the mail would be treated as such.