COMMONWEALTH TELEGRAPHS BILL (Hansard, 12 May 1949)

§ THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COLONIAL AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL)
My Lords, this Bill of which I am now moving the Second Reading represents a necessary stage in the postwar reorganisation of the Commonwealth system of telephone and telegraph communications, that vast system and network of cables and wireless which has done so much in the past to link trade and facilitate co-operation, both in peace and war, among all the members of the Commonwealth. The Bill represents one 590 feature, and one only, in the working out of broad reorganisation plans thought out and agreed by all the Commonwealth Governments. Its full significance can therefore be grasped only in relation to the whole scheme of which it forms a part. But I will not weary the House, as I might otherwise do, by repeating a long chapter of past history. I would only ask your Lordships to cast your minds back to the Commonwealth Telecommunications Conference of 1945, which made the policy recommendations on which this reorganisation has been based, all of these recommendations being subsequently approved by the Governments concerned. They were later embodied in the Commonwealth Telecommunications Agreement of 1948, and for its detailed implementation that Agreement requires, among other things, the provisions of the present Bill.
The 1945 Conference, having in mind the need for public control of this vital Commonwealth interest—a need that became particularly obvious to all concerned with these matters during the war—recommended that the private shareholders in the overseas telecommunication services of the Commonwealth countries should be bought out by the various Commonwealth Governments. The Conference therefore accepted the broad principle of nationalisation which had been strongly urged by the noble Lord, Lord Reith, after his valuable tour of the whole Commonwealth towards the end of the war. If any single individual can be called the father and architect of the new conception of Commonwealth communications it is, as I am sure your Lordships will agree, the noble Lord, Lord Reith. He has deserved well of the Commonwealth, both on account of his past services and for what he is now doing in his capacity as Chairman of the Commonwealth Communications Council; and I am sure that he would wish those senior technical and administrative officials of the Post Office in the United Kingdom whose work has contributed to this happy solution to be included in a public acknowledgment.
The first step by this country in making effective the new Commonwealth partnership agreed at the 1945 Conference was taken in 1946, when the Cable and Wireless Act turned Cable and Wireless Limited into a publicly owned company. Since that date, other Commonwealth 591 countries have gone a step further in the fulfilment of their share in the Agreement by nationalising their external telephone and telegraph services. But when the Commonwealth Governments agreed to acquire the communication assets of Cable and Wireless Limited, and of the local companies within their respective territories, they naturally left each Government to decide for itself the particular form in which it would operate its own external telecommunication services.
It would, I think, have been contrary to Commonwealth traditions to impose a common form of "national body" on all countries. In fact, while South Africa and New Zealand have already passed this new responsibility to their respective Postal and Telegraph Departments, and India has set up a body called "Overseas Communication Services" which is, in fact, under the Communications Department, Australia has set up a public corporation under Government control. Canada has not yet decided which type of management to choose. The decision in the United Kingdom was to make the Post Office, which already operated our other overseas telephone and telegraph services, the national body for the purposes of Commonwealth communications in this country. This important decision was taken while I was serving at the Post Office, and I can assure your Lordships from personal recollection that it was determined entirely on the grounds of technical and administrative efficiency, and on economy in operation, in accordance with the best available technical advice, and that politics did not enter into the minds of any of those who were concerned with the matter.
One of the two main purposes of this Bill is to give practical effect to this decision—namely, that the services and property of Cable and Wireless Limited in the United Kingdom should pass to the Post Office, and that its staff in the United Kingdom should join the ranks of Post Office employees. I would remind the House that the company will continue, as at present, to hold its assets overseas, both in foreign countries and in the Colonies, and also its submarine cables, and to operate its services overseas. The present Bill, which I am commending to your Lordships, will make no change, I think, in the existing relationship outside the 592 United Kingdom between the Post Office and the company.
The other main purpose of the Bill is to carry out the vital recommendation of the 1945 Conference about the setting up of a Commonwealth Telecommunications Board as a further stage in the growth and development of the existing Commonwealth Communications Council. The functions of the Board will be rather wider and more important than those of the Council, and will include advice to Commonwealth Governments on maintenance and planning for their telecommunications system as a whole. The Bill, therefore, proposes to establish the representative central body of this partnership, the Commonwealth Telecommunications Board, as agreed by all the partner Governments. Besides the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Canada, Ceylon and Southern Rhodesia are already members of the Commonwealth Communications Council, while Pakistan sends an observer to its meetings and is now considering whether to become a full member. Since 1945, the functions of the Commonwealth Communications Council have in practice expanded as compared with those which it exercised before the war, and it has been advising Commonwealth Governments on all aspects of their overseas telecommunications. The Bill will, in fact, only regularise what has already become an accepted and most successful form of Commonwealth co-operation. It puts the hall-mark of legal approval on a system which has been tried out and has worked well.
May I now turn to the more important provisions in the contents of the Bill? It starts with an abnormally long recital, as your Lordships will observe, which gives that part of the immediate historical background essential for a thorough grasp of what is there proposed. Clause 1 establishes the Commonwealth Telecommunications Board with a constitution and functions as set out in detail in Part I of the First Schedule. This clause goes on to say that Part I of the Schedule shall be supplemented by Part II which defines "national body" to cover whatever form of public ownership a partner Government may decide to set up. The object of Clause 2 is to give flexibility to this new piece of Commonwealth machinery, to make it adjustable in times 593 to come, by enabling the Postmaster-General to give effect to any changes in the Commonwealth Telecommunications Agreement desired by all the partner Governments. Clause 3 authorises the Postmaster-General to pay the United Kingdom's share of the Board's expenses. By Clause 4, subject, of course, to a contemplated agreement with Cable and Wireless Limited, the company's land and other assets in Great Britain, will, with a few exceptions, be vested in the Postmaster-General in April next year. Clause 5 of the Bill provides financial powers for the acquisition by the Post Office of the company's property in this country.
Clauses 6, 7 and 8, deal with the pension and compensation rights of the company's staff. The total staff employed by the company is nearly 13,000, and of these nearly 5,000 are serving in this country. After the Bill has become operative, the great majority of its employees in the United Kingdom will be taken over by the Post Office. This transfer of staff does not, of course, require legislation in itself, but statutory provision is needed for dealing with pension rights; Clause 6 requires regulations to be made for this purpose. The intention is to guarantee the existing pension rights of the staff taken over, and the specific arrangements under existing pensions schemes will be agreed with the staff organisations. Clause 7 provides for the making of regulations for the payment of compensation to individuals who may be displaced or who, on transfer to the Civil Service, may suffer diminution of their earnings or pension rights. We hope that in practice this provision will not be necessary, but it will safeguard the position of existing employees of the company taken over by the Post Office. Clause 9 gives the Postmaster-General authority to introduce a new revenue-pooling scheme with the company. It is actually an extension of the existing arrangement, and is designed to avoid harmful competition between the cable and wireless services of the United Kingdom by removing all financial inducement to the Post Office or the company to use one method rather than the other.
My Lords, this is, I think, a noncontroversial Bill. It is not a major Bill, but it is a Bill of some considerable importance, 594 both to us and to our friends in the Commonwealth family. I can without any hesitation at all commend this measure to your Lordships for your approval, and I beg to move that it be now given a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2^a.—(The Earl of Listowel.)

§ LORD TWEEDSMUIR
My Lords, I am indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for his clear exposition of this Bill. I have not many observations to make upon it. The noble Earl has sketched something of the history of the communications. The start which the Eastern Telegraph Company made back in 1872 was responsible for our emerging with a lead in long-distance telegraph cables—a lead which we still hold to-day. The Conference of 1929 merged Commonwealth overseas communications in what we came to know as Cable and Wireless Limited. By the Act of 1946, the communications for which the company were responsible were submerged in Government ownership. Clauses 1 to 3 of this Bill, as the noble Earl has pointed out, deal with the Natioanal Telecommunications Board, and I think they give it the flexibility which he claims.
I will not labour the question as to whether or not the Post Office is the correct national body to handle these responsibilities—perhaps "body" is not the right word, because by this piece of legislation the Post Office has the whole of the work of what used to be the body, whilst the overseas arms and legs continue to vibrate under their own volition. I very much hope that the penny-a-word Press telegraph rate will be maintained. It was a bold, imaginative step on the part of the old private enterprise Cable and Wireless Company. It has proved a powerful and excellent influence in spreading news throughout the Empire. I sometimes feel that the shade of Sir Rowland Hill must think rather ruefully of what has happened to the penny post. I hope that the penny-a-word Press telegraph rate will not be a casualty, too.
I have some misgivings about Clauses 6, 7 and 8, which the noble Earl has kindly defined for us. By Clause 6 the Postmaster-General has complete power over pension funds and by subsection (4) of Clause 6, a board of referees, or a single referee, may be set up to hear 595 any disputes and petitions from aggrieved people that may be brought to his notice. That is excellent, but the aggrieved person may find himself further aggrieved in the case (which he is bringing) because he finds himself facing a financial disadvantage. I think it is only fair that provision should be made in this Bill for reimbursing such a person for all the further financial disadvantage that he suffers in attending the tribunal. Provision can easily be made to withhold that compensation if his claim is merely frivolous. Clause 8 makes provision for an allowance to be paid to the referee, or board of referees, and to any witnesses who may be called, but makes no provision whatever for paying the expenses of an aggrieved person who is laying his petition.
Let us imagine a hypothetical case of the kind that might easily arise. An aggrieved person comes down to London from some northern part of England, say Northumberland, to put his case, bringing with him one single material witness. They travel down in the same railway carriage. Both are put to fairly considerable expense. The witness gives his evidence, and is reimbursed for everything it has cost him; but not so the unfortunate aggrieved person. That seems to me very strange, and on Committee stage we shall put down an Amendment which I hope the Government will see their way to accept.
In Clause 7 the Postmaster-General, with the concurrence of the Treasury, has power to compensate all those who have suffered loss of employment or diminution of earnings. That is very right and proper, but I do not think it is enough to say, as the Bill does, merely that he has the power to do that, that he can do it. I think there should be concrete statutory provision that he should. In the 1946 Act, which nationalised the Cable and Wireless Company, certain assurances were given to the then employees that they would not suffer. Certainly those who more recently joined, and those in the lower brackets of salary, have not done too badly. But some of those who have served far longer, and have reached a higher bracket, have suffered. It is a poor reward for a man who joined that company many years ago, and who saw himself with his foot on what he thought was the bottom rung 596 of the ladder, which he was determined to climb to the topmost rung in the course of a lifetime, suddenly to find that by a piece of legislation he is on a snake instead of a ladder. I have no more observations to make at this stage of the Bill and, subject to the reservations I have made, I can say that we on this side of the House do not oppose the Bill, and hope that it succeeds.

LORD RENNELL
My Lords, may I associate myself with what the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, has said? This Bill is the logical outcome of a series of negotiations, of which perhaps the happiest of all the elements is the constitution of the Imperial Telecommunications Board. In its own way that in itself is a very great achievement; it is one further link among the Commonwealth countries. In introducing the Bill the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred to the fact that in their external communications services all the individual members of the Commonwealth had sought their own solution of the method to be adopted. That is right, and in the tradition of the development of our Commonwealth relations. But the noble Earl used one word which I think must have been a slip of the tongue. If I understood him aright, he said that it was no part of our wish to impose any particular solution to this problem on any of the Overseas Dominions. I think the word "impose" must have been a slip of the tongue, because we have no right, and certainly no desire, to impose any solution an any overseas Dominion. I feel sure that what the noble Earl intended to say, if I may put the words into his mouth, was that we did not seek to establish a uniform system which suited us, but preferred to let them have a freedom of choice.

§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, I am obliged to the House and to both the noble Lords who have spoken for the approval which has been given to this Bill. I will gladly deal on the Committee stage of the Bill with the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, on Clauses 6, 7 and 8, and I am obliged to him for giving me notice of the considerations which he has in mind. I think that possibly the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, misunderstood what I said. I stick to the word "impose" in 597 the context in which I used it. I think he will see that what I meant was that the Commonwealth Conference did not seek to impose on the different Commonwealth countries which were there represented any common, uniform national form of body. The choice of national body was deliberately left to the different Governments and Parliaments concerned.