HL Deb 15 May 1969 vol 302 cc203-4

3.10 p.m.

VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD

My 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 whether operator-controlled calls made necessary by a failure of the self-dialling procedure will in future be charged at the appropriate cheaper rate, thus ending the potential vested interest of the Post Office in mechanical failure of the S.T.D. service.]

LORD BOWLES

No, my Lords. Not all subscriber trunk dialled call failures are the fault of the Post Office. Efforts are being made to reduce those that are. The average cost to the Post Office of an operator-controlled trunk call is twice that of an S.T.D. call. Charges reflect this difference. Callers without S.T.D. must pay operator rates. It would be unfair if customers on S.T.D. used the operator's services at a lower rate than those who do not have S.T.D. facilities.

VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD

My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, which I frankly cannot quite understand, may I ask him whether he can give me some estimate of the cost to the G.P.O. of misrouted S.T.D. calls and whether extra staff are engaged on this?

LORD BOWLES

My Lords, that is a difficult one to understand as well. The position is that in 8.1 per cent. of all S.T.D. calls made in 1967–68, the main cause of failure was congestion on the trunk routes. Up to 1,000 new trunk circuits are being provided each month to relieve this. As regards the other question, 28.9 per cent. of subscribers failed to get their S.T.D. calls through; 15 per cent. of calls were not completed because the customer's number was engaged; 7 per cent. because there was no reply as the chap had gone out; and about 4 per cent. because the number was incorrectly dialled.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

My Lords, how does the noble Lord know whether the failure is due to the dialling procedure or to the fact that the wrong number has been dialled?

LORD BOWLES

My Lords, I said that about 4 per cent. were due to the fact that the wrong number was dialled or the number was not correctly dialled.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

My Lords, how is that known?

LORD BOWLES

My Lords, the Post Office is very clever in getting all the figures that are necessary to answer the most extraordinary questions asked in this House.

VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that apparently the Post Office is not clever enough to have an efficient system of S.T.D. calls?

LORD AIREDALE

My Lords, may I ask an extraordinary question? When may we all hope to have S.T.D. facilities?

LORD BOWLES

By 1975, my Lords.