§ The Earl of KIMBERLEYMy 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 why it is the policy of the Post Office to charge the telephone subscriber with a surcharge if the operator has to connect a call due to a fault in the telephone system.
§ The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of INDUSTRY (Lord Beswick)My Lords, the Post Office has advised me that it does not levy a surcharge as such, but charges operator rates whenever a caller, for whatever reason, seeks operator assistance.
§ The Earl of KIMBERLEYMy Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. When I asked the supervisors about the charge, the answer given to me—the Minister knows this—was that the operator has to be paid. Surely the operator has to be paid whether or not he or she is assisting a subscriber?
§ Lord BESWICKMy Lords, the proposition the noble Earl puts forward seems to me entirely acceptable.
§ The Earl of KIMBERLEYMy Lords, could the noble Lord say whether anything can be done to rectify this, because due to the inadequacies of the STD system the unfortunate subscriber often has this problem?
§ Lord BESWICKMy Lords, that is a little different. I gather that the fact is that some callers say that the trouble lies with the STD system or something else to do 634 with the service, and thereby expect to get a free call. It has been found impossible to differentiate between those who are being genuinely misrouted and those who are, as I say, just trying it on. Therefore, at the present time, under the new regulations, the call will be charged at operator rate if an operator is used.
§ Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEYMy Lords, is not the result of this situation that the Post Office makes more money the more mistakes it makes?
§ Lord BESWICKMy Lords, that is a clever way of putting it, but I do not really think it adds anything to the consideration of the problem.
§ Lord BYERSMy Lords, if that is the clever way of putting it, what would be the foolish way of putting it?
§ Lord BESWICKMy Lords, if I were to try to find that, I would turn to the noble Lord's Bench.
§ Lord STRATHCLYDEMy Lords, when your telephone is out of order, and the Post Office recognise that it is out of order, is it not wrong that you should have to pay, as I do, 24p to put through a call which normally would cost 2p?
§ Lord BESWICKMy Lords, I have great sympathy with what the noble Lord says and I think there is great point to this argument. If there is a charge of that kind, however, it is possible to recover it. The difficulty here—and I will pursue this as the noble Lord would expect me to—is that the cost and trouble of recovering it can be quite considerable. It has been decided by the Post Office, who have responsibility for these matters, to charge operator rates whenever the operator is asked to put through a call.
§ Lord AIREDALEMy Lords, who are these people who try it on? Is it not much quicker to dial a call yourself, if you can, rather than getting through to the operator and having three sides of a triangle?
§ Lord BESWICKMy Lords, the trouble with noble Lords who get up from those Benches is that they invite me to make the kind of nasty answer that I gave to the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberals.