Clause 1. — (Grant for Development of Postal, Telegraphic and Telephonic Systems and Other Post Office Business.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Post Office and Telegraph (Money) Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 13 June 1952.

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Photo of Mr Ronald Williams Mr Ronald Williams , Wigan 12:00, 13 June 1952

Yes, I know I should be in order, but I have several reasons for not doing so. I am satisfied that there is something in the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South to which the Minister might find it useful to give further consideration. Even if he is not prepared to have an experiment on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend the time is ripe for a close study of the proposal in conjunction with the Treasury.

I have listened to many debates on Post Office affairs in the House of Commons over the past 25 years. I have been disappointed in many statements that have been made from time to time by successive Postmasters-General. But I doubt whether, hitherto, I have been more disturbed than I am with the statement which the Assistant Postmaster-General made on Second Reading of this Bill. We are all disturbed at the lack of legitimate development in the Post Office and the lack foreshadowed in this Bill.

I have never known a Minister come to this Chamber with such a strong case for more money for development of his Department and yet have to admit that he can do nothing. I should like to read one or two statements which the Assistant Postmaster-General has made, and, at the same time, to congratulate him upon making them openly in this Chamber. He was courageous in doing that. First, he said: The chief point I want to make in this debate, compared with which everything else is secondary, is that the sum we are providing today and are likely to be able to spend in the foreseeable future is quite inadequate for the new developments which the Post Office would like to undertake,"— And he goes further than that— or even for 'us to be able to guarantee that we can maintain the service at present standards. In other words, if the hon. Gentleman's statement is correct we can look forward to a serious deterioration in the standard of the services that the Post Office will provide to the British community in the next five years. These are very serious statements, but the hon. Gentleman made almost as serious a statement on the telephone side. He said: However, it is on the telephone side that the restriction on capital development may have a devastating effect,"— He has been picking his adjectives with great force— because what is done or not done now will affect the standard of service we can give the public over the next four or five years."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st March, 1952; Vol. 498, c. 1192–.] I suggest to the Assistant Postmaster-General that four or five years is a most conservative estimate and that the damage that is being done by this lack of development of Post Office services, especially on the engineering and telephone side, is almost irreparable and that it will take the best part of five, 10 and possibly 15 years to recover the position this country ought to be in from the point of view of those services.

I congratulate the Minister upon the courage with which he has put these facts before us. When he comes to reply to this debate I should like him to tell us whether he was as courageous in the presence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It seems to me that on his own statement the hon. Gentleman has an absolute case for telling the Chancellor that by limiting the expenditure on the Post Office in all its branches to £50 million—as I believe it will be for purely Post Office purposes—he will cause irreparable damage to the only system of communications he has available at a time when national recovery is of paramount importance. I have said in this Chamber on more than one occasion that I regard the Post Office, in all its functions, as an integral part of industry.