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Postal Services Bill [HL]

I have no intention of repeating my Second Reading speech. I trust that the Minister, who was not present then, might have read it. I have considerable experience of the governance of publicly owned industries. Those running them have to put up with constant government interference. We have heard this afternoon of two cases—pension holidays and payments to the Treasury—which have no doubt damaged the Royal Mail considerably. We also have the problem of uncertain funding streams, but I believe that the Bill addresses that in Part 3, in the setting up of the new regulator, Ofcom, which we hope will be better than Postcomm. If Ofcom follows the pattern set by the Office of Rail Regulation for the railways, at least it will establish as firm a funding stream for the industry over five years. Of course, it is possible for the industry to make representations to the regulator about the following five years. It seems that political interference turns on, first, setting not vague but very clear objectives of what the boards of these bodies are to do. One of them is, of course, to maintain the universal obligation. However, there is a need for a few objectives. The next thing is to appoint competent and able people to run them, free of political interference but subject to the regulator’s control. The regulator has done well in the railways industry, but in others—perhaps the national grid is an example—the regulator has not done so well. Thirdly, the public sector has of course had its fair share of the industrial relations problem. It has often been fairly constrained politically in what it can do by, for example, constant interference by the Government in wage negotiations, or rate or fare setting. However, the public sector is now moving to a point where it should have compulsory arbitration of disputes. I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to the fact that there are six ballots outstanding on strike action in railway companies around London. Many of them concern small issues that ought to be cleared by arbitration and not by thoroughly inconveniencing lots of passengers. I want the Secretary of State to think broadly in considering Amendments 4 and 10, and perhaps to think afresh about these problems. We must move the Post Office on to a new plateau which is reliable in terms of its industrial relations, its financing and its objectives. I beg to move.