§ 3.15 p.m.
§ Lord CAMPBELL of CROY rose to call attention to the quality of service provided by the Post Office; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, calling attention to the quality of service provided 1260 by the Post Office. This is a subject of widespread concern at the moment. I shall myself concentrate on two matters: the letter post and the telephone system. Those services affect almost every member of the public, and businesses of all kinds and sizes in the country are also affected by their degree of reliability. I hope that other speakers in the debate will move into other areas of Post Office activities.
§ This seems a suitable time for a debate on this subject, for two particular reasons. First, the costs of both the services to which I have referred have recently risen very sharply without any matching improvement. Secondly, there have been some highly relevant reports published recently, in particular the Monopoly Commission's Report on the Inner London postal services: that came out only four weeks ago. Also there has been the First Report of the Commons Select Committee on Industry and Trade: that was published last month. In effect, that Committee has made public very recent evidence without comment because, they say, interest is high in the affairs of the Post Office. There are indeed in that evidence important facts and expressions of view to which I, too, am drawing attention. There have also been recent reports from the Post Office Users' National Council, especially those on increases in postal and telecommunication charges. It is my impression that the Users' Council does a remarkable job in marshalling relevant facts in the best interests of the customers.
§ The postal service is run as a self-contained business and so also is the telecommunications business, both within the Post Office at present. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry announced last year that the Government have decided to divide the Post Office into two bodies, the second to be called British Telecommunications. This follows the recommendations of the Carter Review Committee of 1977. I will not discuss reorganisation, but I will remind your Lordships that, in their White Paper of July 1978, the last Government did not dissent from that recommendation that the Post Office be divided into two, but suggested that further time was needed for consideration.
§ I turn first to the postal system for letters. The service is erratic and in 1261 general is not good enough. There is a strong current of feeling in the country that it must be improved. The huge quantity of complaints in recent months boil down to three main categories: first, general unreliability; second, high cost of both first- and second-class letters in relation to the efficiency; and third, certain particularly bad areas where there have been inordinate delays, for example, Central London. The letter service is patchy. Remarkably quick deliveries do occur. The trouble is that they cannot be relied on. I have come to know several hardworking and conscientious postmen, both in Scotland and in London, who would like to be able to take pride in a speedy and efficient service. They deserve to be able to. The present state of the post is unfair to them.
§ Let us consider the variations. Within London, it has been the experience during the past year or so that a first-class letter can take two, three, four or more days after posting for delivery, even though it has to travel only a mile or two within London. This is acknowledged in the reports which I have mentioned. There is an anomaly here which I know from my own experience. If I post a letter before midday in the village of Croy near my home, 10 miles North East of Inverness and 600 miles from here, it invariably is delivered by the first post in London. This points towards delays in the presorting and the sorting within London, rather than in the delivery itself. But it shows what can be done, and it also shows how patchy the service is in different parts of the country.
§ To give another example of unpredictability, a lady in Edinburgh, in a letter published in The Times earlier this year, said that she had posted a Valentine card on 13th February. The postal service frustrated her intention by delivering it on the same day, when of course she had intended it for the 14th. In her letter, she described this as the Post Office being irritatingly efficient on that occasion, and The Times published her letter under the heading "Galloping Hearts".
§ What are the Post Office's targets? Within the United Kingdom, where there are no special obstacles or remoteness involved, I understand that when a letter is posted by a reasonably early post the 1262 target is that first-class post should arrive on the following working day, and that second-class post should arrive within three working days. The Post Office carry out their own method of sampling and I understand that they hope for well over 90 per cent. of this target to be reached. I should like confirmation, if my noble friend the Minister of State can give it, when he comes to reply.
§ It seems from the reports to which I have referred that the Post Office have been aiming for 93 per cent. achievement of their target for first-class post, and 96 per cent. for second-class post. But they also have revealed that in the last 12 months or so, for most of last year in particular, the percentages were in the low eighties, and they were in the low eighties for most of that time. I hope that the Minister can tell us more about this matter of being well below their own targets.
§ The number of letters being sent has decreased in recent years, understandably, because the service is no better and the cost in stamps is higher. Much of the trouble appears to be in the sorting procedure, and in the failure to move to mechanical sorting as was planned. The report on Inner London is illuminating on this point. It states that complaints about deterioration of the letter service were fully justified—that is the statement of the Monopolies Commission—and it attributes the causes very largely to industrial disputes about mechanisation. This is an area in London where there is a shortage of postal staff, so the possibility of significant unemployment being caused because of mechanisation cannot be a real genuine matter for anxiety.
§ The most important form of mechanisation being proposed in sorting is the optical character recognition system—OCR. Under this, codes and addresses can be recognised quickly by scanners. The system is successfully in use in other countries, both operationally and experimentally, but in the United Kingdom little progress is being made in this, or in other moves towards mechanisation. Action is required. There must be an initiative to move towards real progress. I believe that rationalisation in jobs is required. Management should be preparing for this, and the unions concerned should see that it is in the long-term interest of 1263 their membership, because it could lead to more rewarding jobs and better pay.
§ The use of part-time labour has hitherto been opposed by the unions. If it could be brought in, it might well provide more work in areas of high unemployment and reduce the staff shortages in other areas. I need hardly remind your Lordships about the sharp increases in costs of the post, but in figures, since last August, the first-class post has been increased by about 30 per cent. and the second-class post by 40 per cent. The public expect rationalisation and improvement in return, bearing in mind that about 80 per cent. of the costs of the postal service are at present labour costs.
§ I should like to draw attention, constructively, to one possibility where a substantial change could be made. I believe that this is bound to come eventually, though it is also bound to be controversial. At present, legislation requires delivery to be made to every individual address. This is not the practice in most comparable industrial countries in the world. In those countries, there are central post-boxes for blocks of flats and garden gate boxes for houses not close to a street or road. In the United States of America, this has been the custom for 30 and more years in many areas. That is a high-wage, high-productivity economy and we ought to heed the direction in which they have been going, because we want to become a high-wage, high-productivity economy, too.
§ To put it another way, a point is reached when the majority of the public cannot afford the price of a personal delivery service. The citizen may then prefer to make a do-it-yourself contribution of collecting from a nearby box, in return for reliability and reasonable charges; not prohibitive charges as they may well become unless changes of this kind are introduced. This change, I believe, needs to be examined. Parliament has a special responsibility, because legislation would be needed. In other words, the demands on the personal delivery service should be brought into line with present-day requirements and the willingness and ability of the citizen to pay for an inessential but expensive part of the service.
§ I foresee that most members of the public will resist very strongly having to put 1264 20p stamps on their letters in two or three years' time, and that is the pace at which postal costs have been mounting. Rather than pay for the time and legwork of individual postmen delivering to every flat or house, they would prefer to economise on that element. The reliability and efficiency of the service are more important to them, and these might well improve as a result. The Post Office have made it clear in the evidence to which I have referred, that for their part they would welcome changes of this kind and it would help them to improve their basic services.
§ I turn to the telephone system. The first disquieting fact is that during 1979 the time taken to provide services and repair faults increased. In its October report the Users' Council described this as alarming. Secondly, there has been a substantial rise in the charges. Telephoning has suddenly become much more expensive. There has also been a telephone bill dispute, causing much inconvenience. It apparently cost £120 million, which has to be paid for by the customers.
§ The most disturbing feature of the telephone situation, however, is the failure to meet applications for installing telephones. This seems to be getting worse. Additional business is thereby being lost. I would seek information from my noble friend about the approximate numbers of those waiting for a telephone. In the Press half a million has been given as the number. That was, for example, in a letter in The Times last week, on 24th April. My own impression, assisted by figures kindly passed to me by the Government, is that in fact it is about a quarter-million, so that that letter had doubled the number. But many have been waiting for six months or more, and it is certainly deplorable that a quarter-million should be waiting for a telephone.
§ It is also unfortunate that the number is increasing, because I understand that a year ago there were under 200,000 waiting for a telephone. There is a connection charge, and I agree that there should be a connection charge for as long as there is a waiting list. That is to avoid frivolous or light-hearted applications which may be followed later by withdrawals, and therefore waste the valuable time of the Post Office telecommunications staff.
1265§ The United Kingdom compares most unfavourably with other countries. For example, in the United States you can get a telephone within 24 or 48 hours in most places on request. I should be glad if my noble friend could provide the latest information about this and any news about plans to tackle this urgent task and catch up. I welcome the new system which the Post Office are adopting, called System X. I hope that this will greatly improve the telephone service and modernise it, but can the Post Office or its successor carry out both tasks at once? Can they provide the extra installations for those who are waiting and at the same time carry out this massive replacement with modern equipment?
§ I should like to say a word or two about public relations. Both the letter and the telephone services need better presentation. At the beginning of what I hope will be a new telephone era, will the Post Office or the new communications body please drop that irritating bird? The advertising symbol Buzby has come to represent all that now goes wrong. When telephoning you can hear his beak tapping on the line or scraping it, before his antics cause you to be cut off altogether in the middle of your conversation. His effect is to encourage unnecessary calls on a network already creaking under the strain. He is also an affront to the tens of thousands—those tens of thousands I have been speaking of—of applicants who are waiting for a telephone. Buzby should be buried or humanely returned to his natural habitat, to the jungle noises with which he has become associated.
§ Whoever advises on public relations should consider rephrasing the demand notes for payment. After a prolonged period of months with no telephone bills, followed by much delayed telephone bills containing shock figures, relationships with customers are not assisted by the wording, "Unless payment is received within seven days we shall be obliged to disconnect your telephone. Should you pay after that there may be some delay before your line can be reconnected and you will be charged a reconnection fee." Of course, there could be reasons such as holidays or illness, or even inquiring into the size of the bill, which could cause delay. The language of ultimatum is not conducive to good customer relations. This 1266 ungracious approach is compounded by the absurd time limit. The seven days, as I have indicated earlier, can be consumed by postal delays in each direction as well as the weekend.
§ Recent history shows that the Post Office's publicity has on the whole been lamentable. The prime example was in 1968 when the two-tier post was introduced. I then initiated the first debate in the Commons on 17th October of that year upon the new system. The Postmaster General of the day had already described the public relations before the system's introduction as a disaster. I was more polite in the debate; I said it had been handled with unexampled ineptitude. But I would remind your Lordships of the chaos during that September and October when mail was being mislaid or taking days and weeks to arrive. What was the Post Office slogan with which one was faced wherever one went at that time? It was, "Someone, somewhere is waiting for a letter from you."
§ My Lords, in my comments on the postal and telephone services, I have been critical but, I hope, constructive. The public had more cause for complaint during the last year than in any other year in peacetime. This must be changed, and changed soon. The interests of those working in the Post Office are involved, as well as the efficiency with which we can all conduct our daily lives. I beg to move for Papers.