§ 2.40 p.m.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the report in The Times of September 20 at the foot of page 4 headed "Overnight guard on 4d. mail" is correct or, if not, how nearly correct; and whether the Postmaster General's statements that 5d. mail merely received priority are compatible with this reported expense undertaken to ensure that 4d. mail is deliberately prejudiced; and, whether the dissemination of the opinion that 4d. mail is unimportant among Post Office staff by the Postmaster General is not bound to diminish the confidence which the Post Office has hitherto commanded from the public; and whether, therefore, the time has now come to terminate the monopoly of letter-carrying enjoyed by the Post Office and to allow the public to seek other means of transport if they prefer.]
1188§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, the report referred to a local mistake which was quickly put right. Some anomalies were inevitable at the start of the new letter service. Post Office staff are well aware that postal packets entrusted to them must not be wilfully detained or delayed contrary to their duty, and there is no reason for any loss of public confidence in the service. To the Post Office all letters are important, but under the new scheme some are treated more urgently than others, according to the customer's choice.
The Post Office has a statutory duty to provide a nation-wide letter service. It would not therefore be reasonable to allow letters to be collected, conveyed and delivered by carriers who would seek out the most profitable traffic, leaving the Post Office to carry unprofitable letters over long distances and to remote places.
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for that answer, the last part of which gives rise to another question which I should like to ask. Would Her Majesty's Government agree that the property in a letter belongs to the person to whom it is addressed, and that the Postmaster General undertakes only to transmit and deliver it? While he has an undoubted right to invent a more rapid way of sorting and delivering, and charging a higher rate for it, this does not give him any right at all to withhold from their owners, in order to exert pressure on the public to adopt the higher price rate, letters which could in the normal course be delivered.
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, unfortunately, the noble Lord has got it wrong, and from some of the laughter that I heard from noble Lords opposite I feel that they have it wrong, too. The position is that there are 35 to 36 million letters posted every day. A postage rise from 4d. to 5d. was going to take place anyway. What my right honourable friend did was to offer to those members of the public who felt that they had a special desire to get their letters through by the next day the choice of paying this extra charge.
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for that answer, but it does not really quite cover the point. Postmen themselves are of opinion, and are telling their customers, 1189 that 4d. letters are being delayed and will be delivered by the next post—
§ THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (LORD SHACKLETON)Question!
LORD SALTOUN—and they are coming round with empty bags. The Post Office staff at least should be informed.
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would allow me to intervene.
§ LORD SHACKLETONIt would be helpful, because we should like to hear a question from the noble Lord, and if he could frame his remarks, which are going rather wide, in the form of a question it would be more in order.
§ LORD BLYTONMy Lords, does my noble friend think that, if an increase in price was justified, it should have been made all round, without this discrimination? And does he not think this present scheme is barmy?
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, that question is another indication of a considerable amount of misunderstanding. I said a moment ago that discrimination between the two classes of mail, first-class and second-class, derives from the fact that the Post Office could not possibly deal with 36 million letters a day. Therefore the public was given an option. If the charges had all gone up to 5d. the same problem would have remained. My noble friend has not therefore thought about that. May I make clear to noble Lords that the amount of mail posted every year is going to go up by 2 per cent. and it will double in 25 years. These facts must be known to be understood. Ninety-four per cent. of first-class mail is delivered the next day; 93 per cent. of the second-class mail is delivered the day after that, called day "C".
§ BARONESS HORSBRUGHMy Lords, could the noble Lord say what percentage is delivered four or five days later?
§ LORD BOWLESYes, my Lords, I can. About 6 per cent. And if one considers, again, the amount of postings, I do not think that 6 per cent. is really very many in 36 million. I should also like to point out that there is a certain element of 1190 human mistake which takes place, naturally. Oh, yes. Noble Lords opposite seem to be infallible! The trains are sometimes late and it is possible for a mail train to miss a connection, and by that means also all the letters in that train would be delayed. That is the kind of thing that happens. Human error is involved in what is taking place. The scheme is new. It has not yet been in force a month. It is a complete change in what the postmen are used to doing. Instead of sorting everything, they now have to discriminate between two classes of mail. I think it is worth bearing in mind, in view of the atmosphere about this matter—some noble Lords rend The Times—that the last letter in The Times to-day is from a Mr. Boston, who says:
My first-class mail is reaching me promptly and my second-class mail is not unduly delayed. My telephone service is efficient and courteous.What am I doing wrong?
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, the only reason why I intervene again is that I asked a question and it was not answered. I asked whether Her Majesty's Government would take steps to see that the postmen and the Post Office staff were informed of the answer which the noble Lord had given me because they are under the impression that the 4d. mail is to be delayed, and they say so to their customers. That was the question which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, wished me to put in the interrogatory form. I had really done so. Perhaps my vice is rather bad.
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, it may be that one or two postmen are a bit disgruntled, but I think the relationship between the Post Office and the Postal Union is very good indeed. There may be one or two people who do not like any change at all, but I do assure the noble Lord that less than a month has gone by since the scheme started; it is getting better every day, and my right honourable friend the Postmaster General is completely confident that very soon none of these questions will be relevant to be raised in this House.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that he said the Post Office could not deal with 36 million letters a day, and that that number was going to increase by 2 million a year—
§ LORD BOWLESTwo per cent.
§ LORD DRUMALBYN—two per cent. a year. Can he tell the House whether it is easier to deal with that amount of letters as one lot, or to add in an additional operation of sorting it into first-class and second-class mail? Does that not entail additional work for the Post Office? Would it not be better to have it as it was before?
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, if I understand the noble Lord's question properly, the first-class mail has to go off with priority. Some second-class mail in fact does get in with it if the first-class mail bags are not quite full, and if the postmen's vans and the postmen's bags are not quite full. Mail with a 4d. stamp, although second-class, can go with the first-class and be delivered the next day. However, there are certain periods in the sorting office, as the noble Lord may know, when there is a slack time, and that is the time when the sorting of the second-class mail takes place. When 5 and 6 o'clock comes along, there is a tremendous load on the Post Office in the sorting offices, the clearing offices and soon. Then the first-class mail is distinguished from the second-class. It goes off that very night, and the second-class, which is delayed a bit, will go with the 11 o'clock or the day after.
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, has not the noble Lord in that answer gone right back on what he said and the purport of my Question. I asked him—and I think he agreed—whether the Postmaster General had no right artificially to delay any letters that are submitted to him. On what the noble Lord says, as I understand him, in a small place which has only two posts a day 4d. letters are withheld until the next post, and that is deliberately and artificially delaying.
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, I am sorry but the noble Lord has admitted that he might be a little deaf on occasions. I did not say anything of that kind. I said that first-class mail was given priority. It was said it would get priority because people put a 5d. stamp on it. Priority is given to the first-class mail, but that does not at all mean the same thing as delay of the second-class mail. Priority is one thing; holding back is quite an active thing, and it is not true about the Post Office.
§ LORD MANCROFTMy Lords, could not all this fuss and bother have been avoided if only the Government had been a little more frank with us in the first place?
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, my right honourable friend the Postmaster General, I think in a speech last night, said that some of the earlier advertising had been disastrous—I think that is the right word. It is in the newspapers this morning, so I think I am entitled to quote him here.
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, may I ask one more question? If the Government are serious in their demand for more productivity, how does it help productivity if every business firm in the country is getting its important letters by the second post in the day instead of by the first post?
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, that is particularly untrue, and I imagine that the noble Lord has been taken in by a letter in The Times this morning in which a man says that his export business is being affected because every letter takes two days to reach him. It is a most misleading letter and it is not substantiated by any evidence or facts at all. That may have misled the noble Lord. The fact is that 94 per cent. of the first-class mail is being delivered by the first post the next day.
§ VISCOUNT DILHORNEMy Lords, would not the noble Lord consider it desirable that the Government should provide an opportunity for explaining all this in the course of a debate? Then the noble Lord would have an opportunity of answering the question put by my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn, which so far he has not answered.
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, I find making speeches in your Lordships' House much easier than answering a lot of questions coming from all over the House. My right honourable friend has an Adjournment debate in another place on Thursday night and perhaps he will be able to clarify the position. I think the House ought to know one other thing about the 5d. letters. In this country a 4 oz. letter costs 5d., in Italy 2s. 8d.. in Belgium Is., in Australia 7d. and in the U.S.A. 2s. The mail in most other countries is from 100 per cent. to 1193 600 per cent. more expensive than our mail in this country.
§ LORD BYERSMy Lords, before the debate concludes, is the noble Lord saying that the Post Office does not hold its mail back; it simply does not send it on?
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, I think we have had 12 supplementary questions and I am not sure whether we are going much farther or faster. Perhaps this would be a suitable subject for an Unstarred Question at some future occasion.
§ LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEYMy Lords, may I ask the noble Lord just to confirm one figure? I think he said that 6 per cent. of all letters are delivered four or five days later—is that correct?
§ LORD BOWLESNo, my Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Horsbrugh, asked me whether I had a percentage figure of the letters that were delivered within the three days; I think she mentioned 5 or 6, but my figure was over 93 per cent.
§ LORD CONESFORDMy Lords, I should like to ask for elucidation of one passage in the noble Lord's Answer. I think he said that 94 per cent. of the first-class mail got there the next day; is not that precisely the same proportion as got there before all this started?
§ LORD BOWLESMy Lords, the amount of mail is going up rapidly and therefore something has to be done to see that some of it can go the next day and that not all has to wait the two days.