John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Department Debates - View all John Bercow's debates with the Department for Education
(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Davey
I share my hon. Friend’s interest in red post boxes, so I visited the British postal museum and archive only last week, and I can tell him that Britain’s post boxes were originally green, but the public complained that they were too camouflaged, so chocolate brown was tried instead. That colour required too much paint, however, so we ended up with red, and we are on the fifth shade of red. I can also tell my hon. Friend that it would cost almost £1.7 million to repaint the nation’s 115,000 post boxes, and given that Royal Mail has 300 litres of red paint in stock I think he can sleep easily in his bed at night about the colour of our post boxes.
Mr Speaker
We have now learned more about post boxes and the Minister’s travel plans and personal interests, for which we are grateful.
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
21. What his Department’s strategy for employment growth is for areas that have a high proportion of public sector employment.