§ 3.19 p.m.
§ LORD MILNER OF LEEDSMy Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what precautions are taken to protect registered mail over and above the precautions taken to protect ordinary mail.]
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, during their transmission through the post, registered packets are kept apart from all other correspondence. They are transferred against signature, and they are dealt with in protected fittings and enclosures inside post offices.
§ LORD MILNER OF LEEDSMy Lords, is it not the fact that registered letters are—or were until quite recently—put into a separate bag, which is usually indicated by a special colour? One has seen these bags on railway station platforms, and it is quite easy to pick out the bags containing registered letters because of their distinctive colour. Has that practice been stopped or does it still exist? Do I understand that registered letters are always in the possession of employees of the Post Office? Do they not go on station platforms and into forwarding compartments and so on without a Post Office employee?
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, it is not correct to say that registered mail can be seen lying about in specially coloured bags. So far as I am aware, it never has been correct; and indeed, I do not think it should be assumed that the Post Office is working on the side of the thieves quite to that extent. The noble Lord is quite incorrect in inferring anything of the kind. If he thinks that he has seen something of the sort, I would ask him to give me the full details of the occurrence, and I will certainly have it investigated. They do not so travel. Mail bags to be seen sometimes on platforms are almost invariably, except for a few minutes during the Christmas rush, of unregistered parcels. The procedures for parcels and letters are somewhat different. Registered mail is conveyed to the train by Post Office employees and is then handed over to 1087 the custody of the guard: it is not the same in the case of parcels. I therefore say again that the safeguarding of registered letters must inevitably make registered mail a good deal safer than unregistered mail.
§ THE EARL OF LUCANMy Lords, in view of the doubling of losses of registered parcels in the three years, would the noble Lord say whether any special steps are being taken to make more stringent the precautions in the case of these parcels?
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, I am afraid that I may have to plead guilty to confusing the noble Earl with a mass of figures. The figures I gave do not indicate anything like the losses having doubled.
§ THE EARL OF LUCANMy Lords, if I got the noble Lord's figures correctly, they were 4 per 100,000 in the first year and 8 per 100,000 in the last year.
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, that is surely one of the best proofs of how percentages can be misleading. I will recount the figures. In the first year, out of 16 million, 639 were lost; in the third year, out of 11 million, 910 were lost. It is a case where the percentage appears to have doubled, but the actual losses are not doubled at all.
§ THE EARL OF LUCANMy Lords, the percentage has doubled, so the situation is more serious.
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, the situation is certainly more serious, and I have no hesitation in assuring the noble Earl that everything that can be thought of is being done. Attention is very definitely being paid to this matter.
LORD HAWKEMy Lords, can the noble Lord give particulars of how packets dealt with under certificates of posting are handled? Are they treated as registered letters or as unregistered letters, and do they appear in the noble Lord's figures or would they require a separate figure?
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, I regret that I cannot exactly relate my noble friend's questions to the original Ques- 1088 tion. I should be glad if my noble friend would put down a question so that I can give him the information he requires.