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Pembrokeshire (Royal Mail Database)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Illsley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) on securing the debate. He should not be too apologetic in saying that this may not be the most urgent issue. It might be fair of him to say that, but my predecessor before I came into the House taught me something, which is, "If it's important to your constituents, it's important to you as the MP," so it is entirely fair to raise these issues. I appreciate completely the passion that he showed for the county of Pembrokeshire. He is fortunate to represent one of the most beautiful parts of the United Kingdom. I have visited it many times and have had many an enjoyable lunch in Fishguard. There is a Celtic magic about Pembrokeshire that touches every visitor. I appreciate well the fondness that he has for his constituency and the county. The hon. Gentleman asks a number of significant questions. One issue I must confront at the outset is the role of Ministers in telling Royal Mail what to do—if I can put it in its most colloquial way. On what he said about the urgent issues facing Royal Mail, after being involved with such matters for a couple of years, my reflection is that perhaps that organisation has suffered from too much rather than too little political interference from Ministers over the years. It has been part of Royal Mail's history that what it does is often second guessed by politicians—often for laudable reasons—but we should get away from that rather than do more of it. Such an approach is in the interests of our constituents for the necessary modernisation of Royal Mail. Let me return to the issue before us: the postcode address file, its purposes and so on. Royal Mail delivers around 80 million postal items every day to businesses and residential addresses throughout the UK. Unfortunately, as technology changes, the amount of mail is declining, but dealing with it is still a substantial job, which involves more than 28 million addresses. As I said, I understand that community, identity and affinity with place are all things about which people care deeply. However, as the hon. Gentleman said, the purpose of the postcode address file is the delivery of mail. The critical point of the debate is to establish the purpose of the postcode address file. A postal address can be made up of a number of elements—the name of the addressee, the name of the company or organisation, the number of the building and so on—but the critical part is the postcode. County information—whether it is Pembrokeshire or Dyfed—is not a required part of the postal address. The issue comes up time after time with regard to Royal Mail when, for example, people want their postcode changed for house insurance purposes because postcodes can be used by insurance companies. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that postcode information is used in the tourism industry, but it is used in a number of industries. Although Royal Mail recognises that, it cannot change the postcode information on an ad hoc basis because of all those other uses. Royal Mail has to keep focused on the purpose of the postcode address file, which is the efficient delivery of mail. Whatever passions surround the issue, it is important to recognise that. Others may use the database, but its purpose is to ensure the efficient delivery of mail. The allocation of a postcode is linked to Royal Mail's network of sorting and delivery offices. Postcodes were never intended to signify a geographically definitive address by local authority, other administrative boundary or community identity. I have had the same issue in my constituency. There was a reorganisation of local government in the black country in 1966, part of which was the incorporation of the town of Bilston into Wolverhampton. People in my constituency in Bilston still have as strong a sense of identity today as they had prior to 1966, but for administrative purposes they are part of the city of Wolverhampton—they have a Wolverhampton postcode and so on. I am sure there are other examples around the country about which we could say the same thing. I understand the issue, but the purpose of the postcode is to ensure the efficient delivery of mail; it is not designed to give us an absolutely accurate description of community identity.