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Postal Services Bill [HL]

I support the excellent speech that my noble friend Lord Morgan made in moving the amendment. He has saved me an awful lot of time because his analysis of where we are and what needs to be done was absolutely accurate. Like him, I hope that when the Bill gets to another part of this building, Labour Members of Parliament will start to remember their responsibilities to the electorate and continue with the programme that they put before the electorate at the last general election. I have used emotional words such as "betrayal" before and I shall not fall into that trap. I took note of the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, when he talked about Second Reading debates. I am sorry; I should have declared an interest. I have practised this because I might be speaking once or twice during the passage of the Bill. My interest is simple: I was a postman; I had a number of jobs at the Post Office; and I ended up as the deputy general-secretary of the union and as a trustee of the pension fund, which I hasten to add was in great surplus when I left the board of trustees. My only financial interest is my pension. I have nothing from any other source. That is my interest and I hope that noble Lords will understand if I do not repeat it over the next few months. I hope that this debate will go on for months. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, said that it would take 33 days, and possibly it will last that long. My noble friend Lord Morgan was, as I said, excellent in moving the amendment, and I thank him. For the sake of accuracy, with regard to the 12 wasted years mentioned earlier, some of my noble friends might like to consider the number of times over those years that I raised the question of Girobank. They might also like to look at the various references that have been made to the Post Office in a number of debates and, in particular, to the obscenity of Postcomm ripping off Royal Mail and the Post Office in general. I have another reason for supporting these amendments. The Post Office is often symbolised with a Crown. As a postman, I was proud to wear that Crown, especially after I came out of the Army, where I had been wearing His Majesty’s, and then Her Majesty’s, Crown on my cap badge. That Crown symbolised worldwide integrity and efficiency, and therefore it means an awful lot to many postmen in the world. They were not wearing a badge like the ones on the shirts of overpaid footballers who kiss them when they score a goal; there was a pride in this badge. However, somewhere along the line, someone decided that the Crown was no longer a part of the badge. I bemoan that, although I may be the only one who does. There are people on these Benches who say that I am sentimental and that I must not go down memory lane, but I want the Bill to be amended and to make progress so as to ensure that we go back to the efficiency of the service of which I was proud when I wore that Crown. I should also mention my interest in Amendments 11, 12, 27, 33 and so on, which all deal with ownership. In one amendment we say to leave out Clause 4(4), which would be unnecessary if the earlier amendments dealing with ownership were included in the Bill. It is a tidying up amendment. Amendment 27 talks about the indirect ownership of companies. It states: ""Where""(a) the Crown owns (directly or indirectly) all of a company ("company A), and""(b) company A owns all of another company ("company B"),""then company B shall be regarded as indirectly owned by the Crown"." You are very clever indeed if you can understand that. I am simply saying that the indirect ownership of companies must be transparent and spelt out in the final legislation. Amendment 97 deals with group ownership, where I suggest leaving out paragraph 7 of the schedule. I say to my dear friends in the Committee that this is my first contribution to what I hope will be a long, long debate on the Bill. As was said at Second Reading, we will go through it line by line. If this question of ownership is put to a vote tonight—I do not suppose for one moment that it will be—I will march through the Lobby saying, "Keep our Post Office under the title of Crown ownership". I support the amendment.