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Postal Services Bill [HL]

I thank my noble friend for that quite conciliatory and helpful reply to this short debate. My noble friend Lord Hoyle drew attention not only to the situation at Stamford Bridge, but to the number of times that the unfairness of the current Postcomm regime has been raised in this House. On his first point about Chelsea, he should have been watching the famous Arsenal last night, who scored four goals. Unfortunately the other team scored four as well. Seriously, I shall not go into my earlier comments, but in my innocence I actually believed that when you put a case showing that something was wrong, people would take action. I turned up at meetings, not only of Postwatch, but Postcomm, and I argued the case. Now, after all this time we are told that the Hooper review cannot answer the questions that my noble friend Lord Hoyle and I have been asking for a number of years. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, agrees with the principle of my amendment. He suggested, and the Minister picked it up, that Amendment 96 could be unfair to smaller organisations. The problem with all this unfairness is that if you put an obligation on Royal Mail, it should be fair to put the same obligation on its competitors, because that has caused a lot of the upset for at least the past eight years, probable longer. It has to be seen to be fair. I quickly looked up Schedule 8, paragraph 3, which does give food for thought, and there could be some merit in my noble friend Lord Carter’s comment that he might consider it possible to create a fair system. However, if the outcome does not make it clear that the role of the regulator is not the role of the promoter of competition, but is the watchdog to see that the competition meets the requirements of the Bill, that would be worth looking at. I am glad that he understands my concern, because it is getting to the point where, because of Postcomm’s interference and biased approach, money has been drained; it is like shovelling £1 coins down the drain. I am prepared to look at the possibility of finding a better way of expressing what I have tried to do in Amendment 96. It is essential that we try to get this as clear as we can. I have said many times during the passage of the Bill that clarity, transparency and accountability must be the watchwords if we are producing legislation that we hope will resolve some of these problems. Ultimately, someone should do the work on the costs on the final mile. Hooper’s team could not do it and they said that they were not asked to do it. There was a bit of a slip-up there if that is the reasoning on which the charging regime is being based. You cannot compare going from Chadford and Moretonhampstead in a nice little van to deliver a letter to the next village—I think it is called Gidleigh; I went there once on a visit—with the final mile of someone going to South End Close in Hampstead, where there are 14 blocks of flats with 140 steps in each block. Someone needs to work out whether there is some measurement that will take into account the various weighting factors required for a fair pricing policy for the final mile. It will not be easy but it is possible. These days, there are ways of weighing up all the differences between a rural area, an urban area and a densely populated area, such as the Abbey Estate in Abbey Road, where I used to live. In North End in Hampstead, you walk down a lovely leafy lane to Northstead or North End Avenue. It can be done and someone needs to do it properly. I am sure that the Government are prepared to look at the possibility of getting a proper pricing policy with proper guidance regarding Ofcom’s responsibilities. With proper consultation, that should be possible. However, for tonight, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 88 withdrawn. Amendment 88A not moved.