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Members' Mail

Volume 972: debated on Monday 29 October 1979

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On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for my earlier intervention. My point or order concerns Government interference in the post office. It has come to my attention that for whatever reason certain Government spokesmen on Friday tried to delay the departure of the 6.30 pm mail from the House of Commons in order that certain envelopes could be taken from the House of Commons post office. I understand that post office officials at the House of Commons, quite rightly, declined to participate in this squalid manoeuvre—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—but I also understand that a special post office van had to come to the House of Commons some time between 7.20 pm and 7.30 pm on Friday. As the guardian of the rights of hon. Members, and also of the House of Commons as a whole, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether you are prepared to accept that the Government of the day, of whatever political colour, should interfere in the activities of a quasi-independent public corporation? I feel that this is a matter of great public concern.

I shall look into the matters that the hon. Gentleman has raised and write to him.