§ 2.50 p.m.
§ BARONESS PHILLIPSMy 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 action is being taken in the matter of serious postal delays at Central Post Office West One.
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY (LORD BESWICK)My Lords, the postal delays in the West One postal district of London, which both Her Majesty's Government and the Post Office regret, are due to a local dispute at the Western District office which serves the area. This is essentially a matter for the Post Office and its unions. I understand that the Post Office is actively seeking to resolve the dispute in negotiations with the unions concerned. A further meeting is taking place this afternoon.
§ BARONESS PHILLIPSMy Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that this matter is now very serious, that it is affecting not only business but numerous organisations, and that many people are resorting to post-boys in order to deliver mail by hand, thus taking us back several hundred years?
§ LORD BESWICKYes, my Lords; I do not think anyone underestimates the seriousness of the situation in that area.
§ LORD PEDDIEMy Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Post Office Users' National Council, of which I am proud to be chairman, has received a tremendous volume of complaints concerning postal deliveries in West One; and that, at the same time, the Council is conscious of the very special difficulties in that particular district, and seeks to give every support to both the Post Office 730 and the trade union in their endeavour to find a satisfactory solution to this very delicate problem? At the same time, I would draw theattention of the—
§ LORD PEDDIEMy Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he is also aware that the Post Office Users' National Council has made the suggestion that there should be an independent inquiry into the very special circumstances operating in West One because, although they may be special, it is more than likely that the circumstances of that particular district which have caused this very difficult problem could be found in other areas?
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, I am aware of the part which my noble friend has played in this matter, and I am sure that we are all grateful for the constructive proposals that have been put forward. They are being considered, and, as I say, there is in fact a meeting taking place this afternoon.
§ LORD BARNBYMy Lords, in view of the importance of this matter to such a great number of people, may I ask whether the noble Lord is aware of instances such as those of which I have been confidently informed, where transfers of not insignificant sums of money from the City to the West End have not arrived after a week or ten days? The interest lost on these failed remittances is high. Would it not be possible to mitigate this heavy loss by notifying the public that the Post Office is unable to give that service which, by the postage on the letters, it is paid to give, and that people who have sums of money to remit had better send it by telegraphic transfer, even though it be at a slightly higher price, rather than rely upon the ordinary postal service?
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, I am sure that the publicity that has already been given to this particular problem, and the additional publicity as the result of these questions, will inform people, so that if they want to avoid the risk of putting things into this particular delivery service they will do so.
§ LORD FRASER OF LONSDALEMy Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that I have an office in West One, and that for the last week or two I have always posted my letters in the 731 House of Commons, the only safe place, and will the noble Lord recommend this to the world at large?
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, I should have thought that that advice would have been more soundly based yesterday than to-day. But generally about this matter may I put it to the House that while, as my noble friend has said, there are special difficulties in the West One area, there are also general difficulties. We have inherited a position from the previous Government in which all the useful people—
§ LORD BESWICKCertainly; and we have to face it—inwhich all the useful people are under-paid. Among them are the postmen, the nurses, the London Transport workers and the teachers. We have to recognise these problems and therefore exercise a certain amount of patience. I am grateful to think that up to the present time, at any rate, the fact that, as I have said, there is to be a meeting has been acknowledged by the House, and I think we should be well advised to see what comes out of this meeting.
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLMy Lords, while I recognise that my noble friend is doing all that he can, would he bear in mind (and perhaps he would tell the postmen to remember) that the West One area covers the consulting rooms of a large number of doctors? I am informed on the best authority that, owing to the delay in delivering these letters, many patients are suffering considerable hardship.
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, I am sure that is the case; but the real solution here, I think, would be not in informing the people who are now there but those who could fill the 400 vacancies which exist in this one district alone.
§ LORD AVEBURYMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that one of the major reasons for the difficulties in the West One office, in particular, is that none of the workers there can afford to live anywhere in the neighbourhood of that office; and that when I suggested to Mr. Tom Jackson the other day that, in view of these circumstances, it might be worth considering decentralising the sort- 732 ing office to a part of outer London, such as Southall, where many of the workers live, he said that might well be a possibility worth consideration? Will the Government look at this?
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, as I have said, there is a meeting taking place this afternoon. I am quite certain that all the constructive proposals are being considered at this meeting.
§ LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONEMy Lords, while endorsing the noble Lord's appeal for patience in this matter, which is obviously the best advice that can be given, will the noble Lord recognise that the difficulty concerning the payment of various persons who work for the public is very much caused by the problem of inflation, which was not simply an inheritance from the previous Government; and will he perhaps, on reflection, consider that the question of inflation is rather too serious to make Party politics about?
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, I think that the question of inflation is too serious to make Party politics about. I suggest, therefore, that the noble and learned Lord should heed his own words.
§ LORD SLATERMy Lords, is my noble friend aware that thereis no group of people more conscious of their responsibility than those people who are engaged in the administration of the postal services in this country? Is he also aware that the previous Government—that is, the Government prior to those on this side taking over in 1964, and the Conservative Government of which the noble and learned Lord was a member—were responsible for imposing upon the Post Office at that particular time the requirement that the positive return on postal charges and postal administration should not go above between 7 per cent. and 8 per cent.? That was the action taken by that previous Administration.
§ LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONEMy Lords, is it not a fact that the Rathbone Place Post Office, to which this particular problem applies, was opened after the event to which the noble Lord has just referred; and that, whatever else may be laid at the door of Mr. Macmillan's Government, this has nothing whatever to do with it?
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, I do not myself rest my case on the Rathbone Place depot. What I call attention to is the statutory Pay Code enforced upon the country by the previous Administration; and there is absolutely no doubt that, but for the rigidity of that Pay Code, some settlement could already have been reached in this case.
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLMy Lords, may I ask my noble friend why women are not allowed to sort these thousands of letters? Does he not think that a woman can sort letters?
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, strange to say, I think they can, and I believe 58 of them are in fact doing so.
LORD GREENWAYMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I had a letter from a famous gynaecologist in Harley Street which took two weeks to arrive?