Lord Spensasked Her Majesty's Government:
How they can reconcile the statement of the Office of Fair Trading, in a letter dated 2nd March 1984 to Aircall plc, that "we have now had the opportunity to thoroughly examine the accounts (of British Telecom) for their radio-paging service. We are satisfied that the accounts contain all costs that would reasonably be expected in such an operation" with the repeated statements of Ministers that British Telecom's accounts are in no state to be published much before 1986.
§ Lord CockfieldThere is no incompatibility between the two statements. British Telecom do have separate accounting systems for some parts of their business (such as radio-paging). But for the most part these relate to peripheral areas and it is not possible therefore to publish a full set of disaggregated accounts.