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Government won 't force PO parcel policy
Page 47
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• The Government last week refused to give into demands that it should put pressure on the Post Office to prevent the shift of parcel carrying from rail to road.
The most that spokesman Lord Denham would say, when the matter was raised in the Upper House, was that the Government would naturally expect to be informed before an major changes were made.
What would the Government do when they Were informed, he was asked . .. "They will consider the matter".
Lord Davies of .Leek, who had raised the subject, urged protection from the tyranny of the balance sheets so far as the social services were concerned, and pressed the Government to help maintain the railways and a postal service that would be able to deliver letters on time.
Lord Denham replied that the effect of sending postal parcels by road rather than rail would be negligible as far as traffic was concerned, and anyway most postal parcel deliveries went by night.
Lord Champion pointed out that the Post Office had already expressed a preference for using Freightliner services and road transport for the change, and he asked that strong representations should be made to the Post Office that this seemed to he contrary to national policy.
He understood that Freightliners would be used to a large extent, agreed Lord Denham, but he would be misleading the House if he did not suggest that there was also a possibility of a certain amount of postal parcel traffic going by road overshort distances.