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Business of the House

I prefer not to be drawn further on my hon. Friend’s latter question, but he raises an important point about compensation payments. The Government have provided enormous funds to ensure that those harmed as a result of their experience of working in collieries are provided with compensation, although more work remains to be done to ensure that the final payments are made. Certainly, I recognise that there is an outstanding issue in relation to surface workers. I will ensure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—who, incidentally, has just answered questions—will contact my hon. Friend with the details of this matter. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the future of the Post Office card account? Is he aware that there is very great concern in many parts of the House about the news that it will cease in 2010—not only the fact of that, but the manner of it as well? Is he further aware that although the Government argue that it was always known that the card account would be temporary, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Plaskitt), said yesterday in Westminster Hall:"““Of course, it is a temporary arrangement””—" but if we had told people that at the beginning, it—"““would have been interpreted as . . . a barrier to . . . taking up the account.””—[Official Report,Westminster Hall, 15 February 2006; Vol. 442, c. 496WH.]" So it seems to me that he has blown the gaff. We need such a debate not only for the sake of the 4.3 million people who have those accounts and rely on the convenience that they bring, or, indeed, because of the £1 billion a year that the contract is worth to the Post Office, but—this is a very immediate point—because sub-postmasters who have reached retirement age who want to sell their businesses now discover that, as a result of that major blow, the business itself has a much smaller value and they are now struggling to sell. It is a very important issue and I urge the Leader of the House to make Government time available to debate it. Will the right hon. Gentleman also find time for a debate on local government reorganisation, as contradictory signals are coming from the Government about their intentions, about the time scale and about the process—not least from the Deputy Prime Minister, as we heard yesterday? I do not know whether I am supposed to welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new responsibilities. Perhaps his hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) is out in the country campaigning for the write-in vote that I thought should be required of such an outstanding candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Democrat party, but we are all sorry that he is not here to receive our continuing support in his efforts to lead the Liberal Democrats. The Government have always made it clear that the Post Office card account was an interim arrangement. I hope that all right hon. and hon. Members will accept that it is an arrangement whereby those who want to continue rightly to use their local post office to receive a range of benefits can do so. Between now and the end of the arrangement in 2010, it would clearly be possible—pilot schemes are already under way—to allow people, having learned from the experience of using a Post Office card account, to use many of the similar accounts made available by the Post Office. They operate on exactly the same basis as the Post Office card account and will enable them to continue to receive benefits that way. That seems a wholly sensible and straightforward arrangement, and it will allow post offices to continue to receive the same level and quality of business as they enjoy under the present arrangements.