HC Deb 25 February 1960 vol 618 cc90-2W
Mr. Shepherd

asked the Postmaster-General whether he is now prepared to introduce a telephone credit card system; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Bevins

Yes, arrangements have been completed to introduce a telephone credit card service on 1st March. On application to the local telephone manager, subscribers who wish to use the new service will be issued with a card bearing a special number. By quoting this number to the operator they will then be able to make calls from any telephone in this country, including call boxes, to any telephone in the world without payment at the time and the calls will be charged to their home or office telephone account.

There will be a nominal charge (5s. per quarter) for the service, but no transfer-charge fee for the individual calls. The agreement of other Adminis- trations is being sought to the use of British telephone credit cards for calls from abroad to this country. So far arrangements have been agreed with 42 countries, including the United States, Canada, Austria, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa and the U.S.S.R.

The new service is yet another step towards making telephoning quicker and easier, and I hope that it will be of benefit to those subscribers and their employees who travel a good deal on business and have to rely largely on the telephone trunk service for their communications.