Oral Answers to Questions — Post Office – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 2 Gorffennaf 1947.
Mr Anthony Marlowe
, Brighton
12:00,
2 Gorffennaf 1947
asked the PostmasterGeneral under what authority power is given to Post Office clerks to demand the production of an identity card; and under what authority they can refuse payment out to a depositor of the Post Office Savings Bank whose account is in credit, by reason only of a failure to produce an identity card.
Mr Wilfred Paling
, Wentworth
The authority is contained in the Defence Regulations, as extended by the Emergency Laws (Transitional Provisions) Act, 1946. Defence Regulation No. 60cc (Statutory Rules and Orders No. 1145 of 1943) gives power to an officer of the Post Office not only to require the production of an identity card in connection with the payment of money out of a Post Office Savings Bank account, but also to refuse to proceed with the transaction until the identity card is produced.
Mr Anthony Marlowe
, Brighton
As a check on fraud, is not this system a failure, in view of the fact that there was less fraud before the war when there were no identity cards, and is not the inference that controls breed evasion of controls and dishonesty increases under Socialism?
Mr Wilfred Paling
, Wentworth
No, I would not accept the first line of argument. As to the suggestion about dishonesty under Socialism, I will leave that until some future time. The production of an identity card may not be the best protection, but it has been some protection in the Post Office against these frauds.
Laws are the rules by which a country is governed. Britain has a long history of law making and the laws of this country can be divided into three types:- 1) Statute Laws are the laws that have been made by Parliament. 2) Case Law is law that has been established from cases tried in the courts - the laws arise from test cases. The result of the test case creates a precedent on which future cases are judged. 3) Common Law is a part of English Law, which has not come from Parliament. It consists of rules of law which have developed from customs or judgements made in courts over hundreds of years. For example until 1861 Parliament had never passed a law saying that murder was an offence. From the earliest times courts had judged that murder was a crime so there was no need to make a law.
