§ LORD AIREDALEMy Lords, I beg leave 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 increase in revenue is expected to result from the withdrawal from private citizens of the concession they enjoyed until recently in common with newspaper publishers—and still enjoyed by the publishers—of receiving first-class service for newspapers posted at the second-class postage rate.]
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, newspapers sent by publishers are newly printed and they have more need of urgent treatment in the post than newspapers posted by private citizens, which are usually at least a day or two old. There will be an increase in revenue only in those cases where private citizens decide to send newspapers by the first-class service and pay accordingly. The main object of the change is to reduce the number of non-urgent newspapers given overnight service.
§ LORD AIREDALEMy Lords, I am obliged for that Answer, but my Question really was, "How much?". I have not had the answer to that question. Is it right that for a quite unspecified and unknown increase in revenue the Government should forsake the principle that the services provided by the State should be available to all on equal terms; and is not that a jolly good Socialist principle?
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, it is too early in the working of this two-tier system to have any estimate that is of any value. With regard to the other 496 question raised by the noble Lord, I should like to thank him for his courtesy in discussing the matter with me and also for writing to my right honourable friend the Postmaster General. The position is that registered newspapers like The Times are first bound up for the individual reader, say, in a distant part of North England; they are then often sent in bags in The Times van to the various termini in London, where they are distributed; and only at the end of the journey, say at Carlisle or Manchester, is the sorting done.
The position with regard to the other newspapers—and I think that about 150 million a year were sent until this concession was withdrawn—is that if the noble Lord sends his Stamford Herald to a friend of his who used to live in Stamford but does not now, it will not receive the same urgent attention as the newspapers sent direct by the publishers, unless it is sent by first-class post.
§ LORD AIREDALEMy Lords, with great respect I think the noble Lord has now introduced a different argument —the argument of bulk posting of large quantities of correspondence. That, surely, is open to all alike. If I go to the Post Office with a large sack full of mail it will be bulked and I get a reduced rate, and so does everybody else, including newspaper publishers. But that is a completely different question.
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, if the noble Lord cares to register with the Post Office for 5s. a year, I believe he can do that.
§ LORD MOYNEMy Lords, can the noble Lord say whether my personal copy of The Times, which is posted by Messrs. W. H. Smith, will have to be paid for at the 5d. rate by Messrs. Smith or whether they and other newsagents get a special rate?
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, I under. stand that newsagents are treated in exactly the same way as the newspaper publishers.