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Postal Services Bill [HL]

Amendment 85A is a little sweeping in the way it is drafted but there is some merit in considering the possibility of having an access point in most postcode districts. One of the by-products of this is what is known as the 739 service. When they get the grey envelope it tells the postal delivery officer not to 739 it. If it gets 739’d, it goes back to the office and people then have the problem of going to the office, which could be miles away. Even given the six mile criteria that the Minister mentioned, that can be difficult. I think there is a way around these things, given good will towards the new watchdog, or whatever you want to call it. I have been through this with the Post Office Users Council and then Postwatch, and now my noble friend Lord Whitty is going to take over some of those responsibilities. With some understanding between the parties, there could be a system that avoided the long treks to the delivery office that happen now. I am lucky; I can drive to the one in St Alban’s, although it is about six miles away and it is a nuisance. We have to find a way for people to call a number and get through to a human being in the area they were talking about. Sometimes you will get an operator in Belfast who will tell you they do not know when the delivery can come out because they are nowhere near the place where your parcel or recorded delivery is. There is some merit in trying to find access points in and around a postcode district, so I would not dismiss the idea, although it needs some work. I am sure that the new regime under my noble friend and others along with Ofcom will look favourably on it, so long as they have in mind what the Minister has repeated—that is, ""take into account the needs of the user"—" although the Government would not accept that in the previous amendment, which is why we will have to come back to it. I think I have answered the point made by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, about the sort of access point that we are talking about. There is a way that it could be done, but it would require some understanding of what we want at that point—do we want to post mail, collect it or use other services provided by the Post Office or Royal Mail? It is tempting to talk for longer about the regulation by Ofcom, but it is very late. I wish Ofcom every joy in what it wants to do. As my noble friend Lord Whitty will be putting consumers’ interests into the melting pot, I hope we will get back to the idea that we are providing a public service. It is costly and difficult, but we should have it in our minds that we are here to serve, not to try to cut things. I am pleased that we have had a reassurance again about no closures of post offices. I was delighted to hear the comment about the people’s bank. There is no need to spend too much time or money; all it requires is someone to go down to the archive and dig out the files on an organisation that started its life as National Girobank. It was a successful and simple banking operation that served so many people who had never even seen a chequebook in their lives, let alone owned one. To my sadness, there is still only one paper in this country that has printed the truth about that: the Scotsman. The bank was almost given away, even though some of us tried to form a consortium to buy it. I will not go too far, but I have said on previous occasions that it was a giveaway to the Alliance & Leicester, and we have had to pay the price. Do not spend too much time looking at the people’s bank that might be; go and get the Girobank files out, and then build on it so that it provides the financial services that a good people’s bank should. As I say, it is late, so I shall cut most of the end of my speech. I assume we are going to have a break soon—I hope so—and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 81 withdrawn. House resumed.