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Postal Services Bill [HL]

In intervening for the first time today, I remind noble Lords of my interests as set out in the Register of Members’ Interests, including my having been a partner for more than 40 years in the national commercial law firm Beachcroft LLP. I am very sympathetic to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Clarke. When looking at designating the UPS, Ofcom should consider not only the average user but those groups for whom an effective universal postal service is of the greatest importance. I was very interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, and, in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said. I had been reading Consumer Focus’s March 2007 publication, Rating Regulators, about Postcomm. I quote from page 10, where Consumer Focus argued against designating in the way in which the noble Lord proposes in the amendment. It said that this, ""labels everyone falling into these groups as vulnerable, which ignores the diversity of capability within these groups and feels patronising to the individuals targeted"." I was not quite sure from what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said, whether Consumer Focus has changed its mind about that or whether that comment is now out of date, because Consumer Focus went on to suggest that a statutory framework—putting it into the Bill— ""may lack the flexibility to allow regulators to respond to changing ideas about the nature of consumer disadvantage"." In expressing my sympathy with the amendment, I say to the noble Lord that I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure the Committee that the list of minimum criteria, such as that there be an affordable uniform tariff, will be assessed against the sort of groups that the noble Lord’s amendment highlights. Surely that is the main purpose of today’s debate.