§ 3.35 p.m.
§ THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HEALTH (LORD NEWTON)My Lords, perhaps this would be a convenient moment for me to give your Lordships a statement made by my right honourable friend the Postmaster General in another place, in reply to Questions about the Post Office unaddressed Household Delivery Service, the Regulations for which were laid before Parliament on the 6th January. I will repeat his statement in his own words.
"In recent years the Post Office has failed to obtain much postal traffic which we should ordinarily have carried by second-class mail, owing to the use of outside agencies for the distribution of circulars and handbills.
"From time to time the Post Office has considered how it could counter this by instituting a cheaper system for unaddressed mail. Such a proposal was urged upon me in the House 1141 by the former leading Opposition spokesman on Post Office affairs, the late Mr. Will Williams, as recently as March, 1963. For some time before then the General Secretary of the Union of Post Office Workers had been urging on me and my Department the need to increase postal revenues, and this service was one of the possibilities considered as a means to that end. As the postal service is now in deficit, I myself was keen on this new and what I believe will be a profitable service, partly in the interests of the public who have to pay the cost of the postal service.
"When the scheme was launched it was made clear that postal packets which are obscene, indecent, grossly offensive or which advocate racial discrimination are prohibited. When, last week, I suspended deliveries, I did so out of courtesy to Parliament, knowing that the right honourable gentleman wished to question it. The question now arises whether the Post Office should refuse to handle political matter in this service, and, if so, on what ground.
"This question involves the principle of freedom of communications. If it is right to allow the delivery of political matter for 2½d.—or sometimes for nothing—it is surely right to allow it through more cheaply. In principle there is no difference whatever. If the suggestion is that it is wrong for political propaganda to be delivered unenveloped, I can only say that open postcards can contain any amount of political propaganda. If the suggestion is that Post Office staff should not handle political propaganda, I can only say that they do so now. Political slogans printed or labelled on envelopes are commonplace in the post.
"Moreover, it would be quite impossible to define political matter, and any attempt to discriminate between the users of the mail would lead to censorship of the mail. The practice in such Commonwealth and other countries as use this service is not to impose restrictions on political matter. I am, therefore, proposing to go ahead with the service.
"In order to avoid overloading our staff, we intend to suspend this service as from the date of the Dissolu- 1142 tion of Parliament or, in any particular constituency, as from the time of the issue of a Writ in the case of a by-election."
§ My Lords, that is the statement.
§ EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for having made that statement. I must say that there are some rather extraordinary things in it. Not the least is in the last part of the statement: that, apparently from the time of the Dissolution of Parliament until after the General Election which follows that Dissolution, the whole of this service—commercial, general, political: the whole lot—is to be suspended for fear of overloading the staff. Yet the Government are proposing to add the whole of this service for all the rest of the months in the year, both with regard to commercial and ordinary mail, plus that which can be sent out by any body with money to support the views they want to support in politics. This seems to me an extraordinary thing. I suppose the little break put in between Dissolution and a General Election is due to the Representation of the People Act, 1948, under which there is one free issue to all candidates of matter which they wish to put before the constituents, but only one, during the whole of that period. I have had no intimation from this statement as to whether the course to be pursued in this period of three to four weeks will be strictly adhered to.
Many objections have been raised by the general public about the extent to which their post-boxes are going to be overloaded with stuff they do not want. I think it is clear that the House ought to have a debate on this subject and it is not suitable to have one on this statement. So far as 1 can see the position, this scheme is going to be carried into effect by the Government by the Statutory Order made on January 6, which counts, in the number of laid days, from January 14. I want to put this question, which might be discussed through the usual channels. We have a friendly understanding between all Parties in the House that we should not have any Divisions against Statutory Orders laid in this House which require the approval of both Houses, unless this simply cannot be 1143 avoided. Therefore, I think we ought to be given some time by the Government for a general debate on this matter, without our moving at this stage the rejection of the Statutory Order. I think that this course might be agreeable to all noble Lords. If we could have a discussion before the end of the statutory period for laying the document before Parliament, which started on January 14, we might avoid controversies which might otherwise arise.
LORD REAMy Lords, may I also thank the Minister for his statement and say that while I largely agree with what the noble Earl has said, I am not convinced in my own mind that there is such a grave distinction between political and non-political matter in this context. We are grateful to the Postmaster General for having delayed the operation of this proposal. His delay was, I thought, to sound the public reaction to what was proposed. In my own inquiries, I have found that a great many people resent having unaddressed matter put in their letter boxes, no matter whether it is political or non-political; and, speaking for myself, I usually consign it immediately to the waste-paper basket without reading it. It is a matter of public interest whether the Government cause the Post Office to be used in this way for any sort of unaddressed mail, and I would suggest that it is not suitable: the public would not like it; and I hope that many of them will take the advice of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and return all such matter to the Postmaster General personally at the House of Commons.
§ LORD NEWTONMy Lords, may I reply to the two noble Lords? What the noble Earl said about a debate is not a matter for me, but no doubt it will be considered very carefully by those whose business it is to consider it. May I recall that last week, on the Second Reading of the Post Office (Borrowing Powers) Bill, we did have a short debate on this subject, and in reply to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, I tried to explain why my right honourable friend had decided to introduce this service. The main point was that it was being done already by private circular delivery companies, and that will go on. And that was the main reason why the late 1144 Mr. Williams, last year, said officially, on behalf of the Opposition, that a service of this kind ought to be introduced. As regards Lord Alexander of Hillsborough's question about the arrangements for a free post during the General Election, so far as I know, no change in the existing arrangement is proposed.
§ EARL ATTLEEMy Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that many people put on their gate posts, "No Hawkers: No Circulars," just to get rid of this nuisance, and if it comes through the Post Office they cannot do that? They are going to have it, willy-nilly.
§ LORD NEWTONMy Lords, I understand that this unaddressed mail is legally a postal packet and not a circular.
§ LORD HOBSONMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the most serious part of this statement is that the postal service is running at a deficit? Can he provide, in the form of a Paper, some estimates to prove beyond any dubiety that this extra traffic is going to result in extra revenue to the Post Office, particularly in view of the fact that it will obviously involve extra overtime and the lengthening of walks for the postmen?
§ LORD NEWTONMy Lords, my right honourable friend the Postmaster General is quite satisfied that it will result in welcome additional revenue to the Post Office. If he did not think so, he would not have introduced it.
§ LORD HOBSONWhat about the expenditure?
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLMy Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether this service will be cheaper to those who use it than the private service which they now use? If that is so, then that in itself will stimulate even more circularisation.
§ LORD NEWTONI am afraid that I do not know the private companies' charges.
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that Aims of Industry yesterday circulated in sealed envelopes, with 3d. stamps—they sent one to me, which is a commentary on their lack of efficiency in their mailing lists—a second circular, in which they say that the sum of £1,580 was the entire sum 1145 which they had paid for the delivery of the first circular, which has now been cancelled. Obviously, the national income would increase if we did not allow these circulars to be put through the letter boxes but insisted that 3d. stamps should be put on them.
§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETHMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that people will object to this? I agree with the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberal Party. I shall mark mine "Not accepted" and shove it back in the pillar box. But is it not curious that this game of sending political circulars through the Post Office channels should start when a General Election is in sight? This is another example of the improper—I will not say "corrupt"—frame of mind of Her Majesty's Government; that they should start this political circularisation, at considerable cost to the people concerned, in the months leading up to a General Election. Is this not very improper? If they want to do this, why cannot they wait until after the General Election? Why time it now? All this will mean additional capitalist expenditure in electioneering by private vested interest organisations, who already spend too much money in trying to influence elections. The noble Lord says that he does not want political discrimination. He has already got it—about matter leading to racial discrimination. That is political discrimination, and very nightly. If people want to circulate political letters, let them write their own envelopes and post them themselves. Why should the publicly-owned Post Office become a willing channel and tool of anti-Labour propaganda in the post?
§ LORD NEWTONMy Lords, there is nothing whatever to stop either the Labour Party or the Fabian Society, or any other organisation, from distributing pro-nationalisation circulars in this way, if they wish. As to the noble Lord's suggestion that the Government decided, for some sinister purpose, to start this service now, when a General Election is not far away, I would only repeat that already masses of political propaganda of all kinds go through the post, either in envelopes or on postcards.
§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETHAddressed by the people who sent it.
§ LORD NEWTONMy Lords, it is still going through the post. If he objects to my saying this, may I point out to the noble Lord that the Labour Party's director of publicity wrote on May 16, 1963, to the Post Office on the topic of political propaganda; because the Labour Party were, at that time, intending to produce for use by sympathisers on their correspondence envelope labels with the slogan, "Let's go with Labour and We'll Get Things Done", and they were told that this was all right.
§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETHThat is another matter entirely.
§ EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, that is common practice. What I do not understand is the suggestion just now by the noble Lord that under what is called legal mail we should have uncovered matter sent out, like this pamphlet I have here, for example, from this very big industrial organisation. I do not see what defence there is in what the noble Lord said in reply to my noble friend Lord Attlee, because hawkers and those who deliver circulars were warned off, and if they became a nuisance they could be proceeded against. But here there is no procedure, except the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth, which I hope many people will adopt, of putting the stuff back into the pillar box for the Government to recollect. This is really a shocking exploitation.
§ LORD TAYLORMy Lords, the noble Lord spoke of freedom of communication. Surely there is also the freedom not to receive unwanted communications. If one is a doctor, one receives vast volumes of stamped and paid-for rubbish from the drug houses. Every day in my mail there are ten or fifteen of these things.
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLThe same here.
§ LORD TAYLORCan we notify the Post Office that we do not wish to receive their circular mail?
§ LORD NEWTONI suppose one can notify anybody of anything.
§ LORD TAYLORBut will it do any good?
§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETHMy Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, as this is Party political propaganda that is contemplated, particularly in the case of the Aims of Industry Group, whether the Government will bring in legislation requiring political propaganda going through the post in this way calculated to damage one political Party and help another, to be charged to the Election expenses of the particular political Party?
§ LORD NEWTONMy Lords, I do not think that arises on this question.
§ LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETHYes, it does.
§ EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I have already pointed out that the practice in such times depends at present upon a Statute—namely, the Representation of the People Act, 1948. The Government must take care that they do not go beyond the proper intentions of that Statute. This sort of thing is abominable and, if necessary, we shall have to take further action.