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Postal Services Bill [HL]

I have no wish to delay the Secretary of State’s response to the challenge that he has just received from his noble friend Lord Hoyle, but it is important that my party’s position on this issue is set out very clearly. That will come as no surprise to the noble Lords on the Benches opposite who have tabled these amendments. I have listened with great interest to some distinguished contributions during the debate, but I have to say that we support the Secretary of State’s intention to part-privatise Royal Mail Group Ltd and that we will support him in rejecting the amendment if it is put to a vote today or on Report. I think that I covered at Second Reading many of the arguments behind our policy. We support the Hooper report in principle. The influx of private capital and expertise, especially at the management level, is necessary—it has long been so—to give Royal Mail the support and the impetus to revitalise a company that must overcome the challenges of market liberalisation and the rise of digital communication. It will not be an easy task, but I found Richard Hooper very persuasive when he said, although it is unfortunate that this should be under headline 13: ""We recommend a strategic partnership between Royal Mail and one or more private sector companies with demonstrable experience of transforming a major business, ideally a major network business"." I agree. We hope that a partially privatised Royal Mail will be able to seize the opportunities that new technology and the expansion of the parcel market offer, for example. That said, it is quite right that the policy should be challenged, as it has been, by the contributions that we have just heard. However, the Hooper review is an extremely useful document in bringing together in one analysis, which the Government have finally accepted, what so many of us have known for so long. The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, took me to task before. I recall having a number of debates with him over the years. These go back even to when the Secretary of State and I used to run something called the British Youth Council and the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, was chairman of the Scottish Union of Students. However, I do not want to look back—well, not that far back. It is sad that the Government have done so little over the past 10 years to address the slow rate of modernisation and the inability to compete effectively with private sector providers, although I acknowledge what noble Lords have said about the past, particularly about Girobank. I remember Girobank, which I think had been Post Office Giro and became National Giro, National Girobank, Girobank and then the Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank. There is still a need for that sort of service. I think that Girobank was the first organisation to offer a free banking service and telephone banking. I met the workforce on several occasions, and there is still a contribution to be made there. Two years ago, however, the chairman of Postwatch submitted a proposal—it was called, rather dramatically, Project Neptune—which suggested a public/private partnership to supply the necessary equipment for fully automating mail centres. In contrast to what the Government are now suggesting, it did not involve any transfer of ownership to the private sector and, by the time it was rejected by the then Minister, it had established three private sector companies that would be willing to invest some £2 billion in Royal Mail in return for leasing and operating costs, with Royal Mail retaining any profits. I am certainly not suggesting that we bring that option back to the table—we are now long beyond that point—but it was very sad that it was not taken more seriously at the time. With this Bill, the Government have now finally accepted that something needs to be done, and we are glad that they are implementing the report. I have asked a number of questions about the method by which they are doing it. We have alluded several times—I will not repeat myself—to the speed with which the Government are trying to go forward. A number of noble Lords have asked for the case to be set out quickly in Committee, which is why I very much look forward to hearing from the Secretary of State.