PERSONAL EXPLANATION BY LORD ARNOLD. (Hansard, 11 May 1927)

§ LORD ARNOLD

My Lords, I ask permission to say a few words of personal explanation in regard to a matter which occurred at the conclusion of the debate on National Expenditure last night. Most unfortunately I had a very important meeting at half-past five, which it was imperative I should attend, and therefore I was not here when the debate ended. Just at the close the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, rose and challenged certain figures which I had given. As the matter is rather important I ask permission first to quote what Lord Gainford said. He said:— I was rather surprised when Lord Arnold said that if you eliminated the cost of the Post Office, which was a Department which made a profit in connection with its transactions, the cost of the Civil Service would be brought down to £20,000,000 a year. Having been at the Post Office I felt sure that the cost of the Post Office was nothing like £55,000,000 a year—the difference between £75,000,000 and the £20,000,000 which Lord Arnold mentioned. I find that in the Estimates for 1926–7 the cost of the Post Office is given as £35,000,000, instead of £55,000,000; in other words, Lord Arnold is £20,000,000 wrong in under-estimating the cost of the Civil Service. There are two points raised there—of which the first is the cost of the Post 172 Office Service, which the noble Lord says should be £35,000,000 and not £55,000,000.

I have in my hand the White Paper which is always published and which is dated April 11 this year. On page 76 this appears:— Estimates of Expenditure on existing basis for the current year. Self-supporting Services, Post Office, £54,852,000. That is, in round figures, £55,000,000. Again, on the last page the final figure is given—Post Office Vote, £57,643,000. The statement I made was perfectly correct. The explanation probably is that the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, I am sure quite unwittingly, had been led into an error by getting hold of some Government Paper which was presumably dealing with Estimates and had there come across the place where the Post Office, expenditure had been divided. As your Lordships know, there are three kinds of service which the Post Office renders. They are:—carrying letters and parcels and sending telegrams and telephones. The noble Lord, Lord Gainford, had evidently come across the first item, which would be over £35,000,000, but that does not give the cost of the Post Office Vote. It has always been given in the principal Government statements of finance, as I have shown, for the three services. That has always been done.

The second point is this. As a matter of fact, the question at issue was not the Post Office Vote at all, it was the cost of the Civil Service, but the noble Lord, taking up a figure which the noble Earl opposite, Lord Midleton, had given of £75,000,000 for the cost of the Civil Service and deducting £35,000,000 for the Post Office—as I pointed out the £75,000,000 included the cost of the Post Office—said the cost of the Civil Service was £40,000,000 and not £20,000,000 as I had indicated to your Lordships. The noble Lord was wrong and the figure of £20,000,000 which I gave was quite accurate. I think the matter is of some importance and I take this opportunity of giving the facts. I am sure the noble Lord had no intention of misrepresenting me. Had he had any such idea as that he would not have done it in the way which made it so easy to refute. I thank your Lordships for allowing me to make this correction.