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Postal Services Bill [HL]

I could not resist the temptation to comment on the view of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, about making transformed Post Office business part of the deal. This is a good opportunity to dispel some myths about what goes on at Royal Mail. Until recent years, nothing could be done by management without political interference and direction. The whole question of the deficit has come about as a result of the 12 to 13-year pensions holiday, which the Government endorsed. The first of those years was estimated to have cost Royal Mail, in those days, £100 million. If you are looking at losses like that over a decade, you realise how the pension fund got into this difficult position. When the noble Lord says that this should be part of a deal for modernisation, I am not sure that he is aware of the strenuous efforts that are being made at this moment to introduce the machines that I mentioned earlier, the enhanced optical character recognition machines and the walk-sequencing machines. The latter will transform post offices so that people can go in and pick up a bundle that has been pre-sorted and is ready to go out because the walk sequencing is working to a plan. I will talk about those machines again later on, because I still do not believe that they are in this country—although I have to accept the Secretary of State’s comment at Second Reading that they are in wraps. We will come to that at the appropriate time. Strenuous efforts are being made to modernise the Post Office. The agreement over the introduction of a change in working methods is now two years old. The workers in the industry received a cash bonus for the agreement they made, and they are honouring it. I am informed that as recently as yesterday 98 per cent of the delivery offices are working under, or have made agreements for, the new plan. It is not my job to defend the Post Office management—I have spent most of my life opposing them—and, as I have said before, I am not here as a sycophantic supporter of the Royal Mail board, but it has to be said that political interference on tariffs, service provision and the cuts in services that have been mentioned today have all been properly addressed. The excuse that is being used to privatise the Post Office is based on the false premise that our people—I say "our people" because I am a retired postman—are not working as they should. They have honoured their part of the agreement. The management are faced with a big problem over the pension deficit, but that is not a problem of modernisation; the profit that the company is now making, together with the relief from the pensions deficit, could in fact fund the future modernisation that is required. I am talking not just about those two machines but about delivery aids, trolleys—things that were never heard of in my time. There is a willingness on the part of people in the industry to work with management. This is not the first time I have said this and I will probably say it again: we do not require people from outside to come in and add to the 50,000 jobs that have already been lost. The Post Office and its unions can work together if given the right to do so, and I know for a fact that the union I was once a proud leader of—deputy leader; I should get that right—is up and ready to face the future. When anyone talks about "a transformed company for the future", please do not run away with the idea that these people are not trying to put their backs into trying to save a wonderful Post Office for the people of this country and provide the service that they need.