asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will estimate how much it would cost to grant a concessionary penny postal rate to all retirement pensioners.

This would be a matter for the Post Office, but it would be impossible to ensure that only pensioners' correspondence was sent at the concessionary rate.

While I accept there would be great administrative difficulty in any such suggestion, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider such a scheme over the Christmas period?

I do not see how on earth one could tell whether an old-age pensioner had written the letter.

Will the right hon. Gentleman consider supplying old-age pensioners with a few pre-paid envelopes—there would be no great administrative difficulty about that—which they could get when drawing their pensions? Is not this a reasonable suggestion which could be implemented almost overnight?

That is a matter which the hon. Gentleman should address to the Post Office Corporation.