HL Deb 14 May 1946 vol 141 cc159-68

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL)

My Lords, this is the first time during the current session that I have been able to handle a Bill that is in some way connected with the work of my own Department, and therefore to me at least this is an exceptionally pleasurable occasion. The object of this Bill is to enable the Post Office to borrow the capital it needs for the extension and improvement of the telephone, telegraph and postal services. All but£4,000,000 out of£50,000,000 required is for use for the telephone service The amount authorized by the previous Act of 1942 was considerably less than we are now asking for, only£35,000,000 in fact, but spending, of course, at that time was restricted to works required directly or indirectly for the conduct of the war. The present Bill is intended to supply funds for new developments which could not be carried out during the war when labour and materials were in extremely short supply. The extensive arrears of work that must now be overtaken explain why the amount of money asked for in this Bill is larger than on previous occasions. The Post Office will also take over for its own use a certain amount of plant which was constructed for war purposes, and the cost of which was borne at the time upon Votes of Credit. The borrowing powers of the Bill will be used to the extent required to cover the cost of this new plant. The total sum of£50,000,000 for which we are asking in this Bill should meet the requirements of the Post Office until about June, 1948.

The Post Office is, of course, experiencing many difficulties in the aftermath of six years of unremitting warfare, difficulties which, of course, are not peculiar to any one Government Department. These difficulties are a direct result of the war, and they cannot, unfortunately, be overcome for quite a considerable time. The large number of enlistments of Post Office engineering staff in the Forces, 16,00o out of a total of 41,000 men, and the inability to make good these losses by recruitment of more than 11,000 temporary staff, made it impossible to meet applications for telephone installations as they came in, and a waiting list of over 300,000 applicants has now accumulated. That this is a legacy of the war, and is not due to the operation of public control as compared with private enterprise, is shown by the fact that in the United States of America there are roughly as many people waiting for telephone installations in New York City alone as in the whole of the United Kingdom.

But there is one hit of good news I can give to-day. I am glad to say that during April there was, for the first time, a reduction—a small reduction it is true—in the size of the waiting list in the London region. There is good reason to think that we have now turned the corner in London, and that fresh installations will continue to reduce the number of people who are waiting for telephones. Since the end of the war fresh demands for telephone service have been coming in at a greatly increased rate. In recent months they have been coming in at more than double the pre-war rate. The Post Office is making a great effort both to cope with current demands and to clear off outstanding cases, while, at the same time, it does what it can to improve the existing telephone service. It has already increased the installation of telephones to the rate of 60,000 a month—which is nearly 75 per cent. more than the pre-war rate. That is not, I think, at all a bad achievement considering the continuing shortage of engineering staff.

The borrowing powers in this Bill will enable us to do our utmost to speed up the provision of new telephone connexions. For this purpose additional ducts, underground cables in the streets and exchange buildings must be provided as time goes on. Unfortunately, all these jobs have to compete for labour with the building industry. In spite of this, the work of laying ducts and cables is already going ahead in over 200 towns, and plans are in preparation for further underground construction in about 500 other towns. The Post Office would like to plan for even more new work in order to cut down the waiting lists and enable new telephones to be installed with the least delay, but it is still held up by the short supply of labour. As demobilization continues a constant flow of skilled Post Office workmen is increasing our engineering staff, and the recruitment and training of additional men, of young men as a general rule, is proceeding all the time. As a result of this fresh intake from both sources the engineering rank and file staff which amounted before the war to 41,000 men, and which was only 36,000 at the end of hostilities, will soon reach the record figure of 45,000 men.

I mentioned earlier that the Post Office will be able to take over for the public service a considerable part of the plant laid down for war purposes during the conduct of both the war in Europe and the war in the Pacific. The Defence Services have already surrendered several thousand trunk circuits and there are now in use, for public trunk calls, more than 12,000 circuits for distances of over 25 miles. This compares with less than 7,000 of these long-distance circuits before the war. So the number of circuits now available is almost double what it was before the war.

The telegraph service has been handicapped by the destruction by enemy action of the Central Telegraph Office in London and by the loss of the Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth telegraph offices in the same way. The improvement of the telegraph network by the introduction of new switching methods, which will accelerate the transmission of telegrams, is now in hand and we expect these changes to be completed during 1947. We hope by the end of the current year to have made sufficient progress to enable us to give the public a telegraph service just about as good as we gave before the war.

May I in conclusion—because this is a Money Bill and I wish to be as brief as is customary on such occasions in your Lordships' House—stress the considerable output which the Post Office in carrying out its statutory duty of providing telephone and telegraph services for the public has succeeded in obtaining only nine months after the end of the war. Compared with pre-war days the Post Office is now carrying thirty per cent. more telegrams, is handling ninety per cent. more long-distance trunk calls and is installing over fifty per cent. more telephones each month. Your Lordships will realize that this has meant hard and sustained work by the whole of the staff concerned, and I should like to express my very keen appreciation, an appreciation which I am sure will be shared by your Lordships, of the fine effort made by the Post Office staff. During the war it kept open continuously the channels of communication, often under great difficulties and at moments of great danger. It kept open the channels of communication needed by the military and by the civil population at home. It has now turned with no less determination to its most urgent peace-time job of giving the public, as soon as the damnosa hereditas bequeathed by the war has been paid off, telephone and telegraph services of which the Post Office and the country can both be proud. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Listowel.)

3.17 p.m.

LORD LLEWELLIN

My Lords, I think we are all very much obliged to the noble Earl for the account of the doings of the Post Office which he has given in moving the Second Reading of this Bill. We all wish him success in his office and I should like to join in the tribute which he has paid to the Post Office workers. During the days of the war, great pressure was put upon them and they had to carry out their work under circumstances of considerable difficulty. It was not too easy to sit, as girls were obliged to do—in some instances alone in a small exchange—and carry on the work of the telephone exchanges when the "blitz" was on. But the workers all stuck to their posts and so our communications never broke down. Indeed, without their work I do not know what the Defence Services of Great Britain would have done. We have to offer our sincere thanks to them for the courage which they displayed and the manner in which they stuck to their jobs in those difficult days.

I am sorry that we have not been able to get a little more progress even than we have done in the Post Office since the war. I realize that the Postmaster-General is hampered, as are others, by lack of labour at this time. But there are too many people waiting to have telephones installed in their houses, and I do hope that the Postmaster-General will look into this and see whether anything can be done to enable him to increase the number of his customers and to give this vital service in more homes. As a matter of fact, if a house is vacated nowadays, even for the short periods that houses are now vacated, you find that a Post Office man goes in the very next day and the telephone is whisked away, although often the wires are left. Then, so far as the installation of a telephone is concerned, that house goes to the bottom of the list and several months have to elapse before a telephone can be put in. I wonder if it would not be possible, even as a temporary measure, to make more use of telephones that were used by the Services during the war.

Another point I would like to raise, as we are discussing the Post Office, is this. When we want more telegraph poles, as we undoubtedly shall in some places, since you cannot put all lines underground, are we getting, or could we get, poles from Germany for that purpose? We have cut down too much of our timber in Scotland and in our own country both in the last war and in this war. I have said this in the House before, but I do not apologise for saying it again. There are masses of timber in Germany and we ought to get some of that, not only for the Post Office but for houses, and make the Germans send it for reparations and to save the woodlands of this country.

A NOBLE LORD: Why not take the telegraph poles themselves?

LORD LLEWELLIN

If you do, at any rate they will be seasoned. I quite agree that we might take the poles so long as it will not cause a breakdown in the communications of the occupying Forces. But I do urge that everything should be done to get timber from Germany and from other countries. The Post Office is in urgent need of that, as I well knew when I was allocating timber in the early days of the war. The tremendous demands of the Post Office then made heavy calls on the best and tallest trees which we grow in this country. Apart from these observations, which I hope have been constructive, I rise to support the measure.

3.22 p.m.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend one question before the debate continues? I would like to congratulate him on the expeditious and excellent way he moved his own child—his own Bill. My noble friend spoke about the difficulty of obtaining technical, skilled workmen and engineers and, of course, materials. We heard an echo of that from the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. I understand that one difficulty has been the shortage of telephone operators. Is the Post Office getting what is needed, in the general demobilization scheme, in the allocation of labour? I have heard it said that one of the causes of delays is the shortage of girl operators.

3.23 p.m.

EARL HOWE

My Lords, I am anxious to ask the noble Earl a question with regard to his Department. He has given us a number of interesting figures, and told us of an increase in the number of telephones being installed, but I do not know whether any of your Lordships have had a similar experience to my own—and I know it is the experience of many others—when chaffing a number from an automatic exchange. On some occasions you will hear a ringing tone, and then suddenly it shuts off. You then dial again, hoping for the best, with probably the same result. After that had happened to me a few times I took the trouble to inquire from the local exchange the possible reason for that. I was informed by the exchange that the automatic exchanges, in London, at any rate, are at the present moment very much overloaded.

Whether that is so or not I do not know, but the more telephones that are installed the more that difficulty must be aggravated, assuming that the reason given is the correct one. I am wondering if the noble Earl could say anything with regard to automatic exchanges as a whole. There is another point I would like to raise. Those of us who live in the south of London, and who frequently make toll calls, are very often given the "engaged" signal when we put in a call. On inquiry we are told by the exchange that the line—not the number—is engaged. If that is so it seems to point to an insufficient number of lines. I only put these questions to the noble Earl in the hope that he may be able to give those of us who suffer from these minor worries some slight help.

3.26 p.m.

VISCOUNT MAUGHAM

My Lords, may I say a word for consideration by the noble Earl in respect of requisitioned properties now being returned to the unfortunate owners. What I have in mind occurs in a number of cases, but I am in particular interested in the case of a noble Lord whose house, having been requisitioned for nearly six years, has only recently been derequisitioned. On de-requisition the War Department proceeded to remove the instruments which they had been using during the war. They were instruments, I may add, which were the property of the Post Office and not of the War Office so perhaps the noble Earl in charge of the Bill will see that he is personally concerned to protect this property. These instruments have been removed, torn away from the walls, and there seems to be no prospect for many months of getting the instruments back again, or similar instruments installed.

Those of us who live in the country, some miles from another telephone, know that such a state of affairs almost makes the property unusable. The occupants are unable to order supplies, unable to communicate with their friends, and unable to do any of the vast number of things that people in the country have become accustomed to doing by telephone. If you restore their property to them, minus the telephone, which they have been accustomed to using for perhaps ten or twenty years, it is almost giving them property which has been deprived of a very large part of its value for habitation. I am not asking impossibilities. I am asking only for this—that people whose properties had telephones belonging to them at the date of requisitioning should be given priority in respect of the return of these amenities.

3.29 p.m.

LORD WALERAN

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Llewellin mentioned the Air Defence of Great Britain. As an officer who has served in a group in Fighter Command I would like to pay a tribute to the ground crews of the Post Office who repaired the lines. As my noble friend has said, air defence depends on quick communications; and that means land-line communications. When we had those raids on our smaller towns, the Baedeker raids as they were called, we lost a lot of lines because we had put our switching centres through the towns which we thought would not be bombed. We got our lines repaired with the greatest possible celerity and our signal section had the greatest co-operation from the General Post Office.

LORD MOUNTEVANS

My Lords, I should like to pay tribute to the Post Office engineers. I have had three telephones installed; one in Chelsea, which took five days to instal after application; one in Kensington, which was installed in one day, and one in the City in two days. I think there is a good deal in the method of approach to the engineers. Mine perhaps has been a happy one.

3.31 p.m.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, let me first say how much obliged I am to the House for the extremely friendly reception it has given to this Bill, and to a number of noble Lords for the constructive suggestions they have made about the work of my Department. I particularly should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, for the tribute he paid to the work done by the Post Office staff during the war, and to the noble Lord, Lord Waleran, for his reference to the work of the engineering staff which was helping to repair and maintain the circuits used by the Royal Air Force. I am not in a position to answer on the spur of the moment every question that was raised by noble Lords, but I will answer those with which I can deal without further consideration.

The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, said that it causes great inconvenience when a tenant, at the end of his tenancy leaves a house, and the telephone is removed, because the subsequent tenant has to wait a considerable time before he gets a new installation. Those facts are, of course, completely true. The point is this, that, in every area, a very large number of people are waiting for a new telephone. Those telephones are provided according to the length of time that a subscriber or a potential subscriber has waited, or according to certain priority categories, and it would therefore be unfair for an incoming tenant to take precedence over people in the same area who had been waiting for a much longer time or had a much more urgent claim to the telephone service.

LORD LLEWELLIN

I think the noble Earl has slightly misunderstood me. I was only taking that as an instance of the need for pushing ahead with the provision of telephones to the greatest possible extent, although I must say with regard to the point made about places in the country, where they have always had a telephone before requisitioning (I should have thought that was a different point) I would support my noble friend on that.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

I entirely accept what the noble Lord has said. He mentioned that he thought that we might acquire timber, or indeed, whole telegraph poles, from Germany in the form of reparations, for use in this country. That, I am afraid, is a point that I cannot answer immediately, but I will certainly take personal responsibility for seeing that it is given careful consideration. My noble friend Lord Strabolgi who is not here (and whose question therefore I feel I need not answer) will, I am sure, appreciate that we are doing our best to recruit girl operators for the telephone exchanges, and I shall be pleased to inform him later of the steps we have taken.

The noble Earl, Lord Howe, referred to certain difficulties he had experienced in connexion with certain automatic exchanges in London. He said the reason given was that the exchanges were overloaded. That may be the case. It may equally have been the case that the machinery was not in the best possible condition. It is, unfortunate that we have been unable to maintain a reasonable standard of maintenance in the plant and equipment of the telephone service. The standard has fallen considerably since the beginning of the war, and this very often gives rise to many inconveniences which your Lordships experience when trying to dial toll or trunk calls. We are, however, dealing with the overloading of exchanges, by building more exchanges in the London area. Some have already been started, and we have a considerable programme which will be carried out in the next few years.

The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, raised a point of considerable importance which I cannot answer immediately, but I will address myself to his point at the earliest possible moment. I am particularly grateful for this debate, which has extended for a greater length of time than the usual discussion which takes place on a Money Bill. I like to think that that means that the Post Office is giving a certain amount of satisfaction to, as well as occasioning a certain amount of criticism from, your Lordships and the public generally.

On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.