§ Mr. Lewisasked the Assistant Postmaster General if he will publish in HANSARD a table of figures showing the total amount of letters that have been sent from the House of Commons for each of the years from 1946 to the latest convenient date and the revenue received from these; the cost of telephone calls from the House of Commons for the same period, showing, separately, the charges for toll and trunk calls made by Members through the Members' Telephone Office.
§ Mr. GammansI regret that information in the form and detail required by the hon. Member is not available, but I hope that the following figures may be useful to him.
108WPostings
Figures of postings for certain periods in 1946 and 1953 are as follow:
— Number of letters posted in the Palace of Westminster Bearing postage stamps In "Official Paid" and officially franked envelopes Total Weekly average for the 6 weeks ended 4th March, 1946 13,748 10,840 24,588 Week ended 20th June, 1953 16,672 10,610 27,282 Letters sent to Members and redirected through the House of Commons Post Office are not included in these figures.
Telephone calls
The estimated value of unpaid telephone calls from the House of Commons for each year since 1947–48 is:
£ 1948–49 … … … … 1,410 1949–50 … … … … 1,050 1950–51 … … … … 1,480 1951–52 … … … … 1,740 1952–53 … … … … 1,670 The charges paid by Members for trunk and toll calls made from the Members' Telephone Office in the 12 months ended 30th June, 1953, totalled £1,483. Earlier figures are not available.