§ Captain Kerbyasked the Minister for the Civil Service whether all Official Paid On Her Majesty's Service envelopes are now being overprinted with a bold black figure 1 in a black-ruled box, as in the 172W case of House of Commons On Her Majesty's Service envelopes used by honourable Members; how much such overprinting has cost; and at what rate were On Her Majesty's Service letters found to travel, under the two-tier postal system, before such overprinting was deemed necessary.
§ Mrs. HartNo. Users of Official Paid envelopes have discretion to use the first or second class service according to the urgency of their communication. Only envelopes for use with the first class service are distinguished by a figure I and arrangements for marking this symbol, mostly by rubber stamping but in a few cases by overprinting, have been available from the introduction of the two-tier system. The cost of overprinting averages about 5s. 6d. per thousand envelopes.