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Royal Mail

First, I join the Minister in hoping that management and trade unions find some way of resolving the dispute and avoiding a totally suicidal strike. They should return to the previously agreed programme of modernisation as quickly as possible, in the interests of both the customers and staff of Royal Mail. Does the Minister agree that we should welcome the management's announcement that, if necessary, they will recruit temporary staff to maintain the service to customers? Many small businesses would be threatened by a continued dispute, and of course the possibility of disruption to the Christmas mail looms before us. I hope that he will welcome the management's decision in that regard. The Minister's statement was factually accurate, but surely he does not think that he can wave away the Government's involvement in this matter. Is it not plain that it was the Government's weakness in conceding on their policy of part-privatising Royal Mail that almost immediately encouraged the Communication Workers Union to believe that it could move to reopen the two-year-old deal on modernisation and contemplate strike action? There seems to be a clear relationship between the two. I welcome the continued commitment to the recommendations of the Hooper report, which we share, and the three key proposals which have to go together if they are to proceed at all. I hope the Minister can reassure me that that resolution to the existing policy will be maintained in the face of the undoubted pressures that he will come under if a strike goes on. After the cave-in on the Bill, can he reassure me that his weak Prime Minister will not next induce him to start taking apart the Hooper recommendations and making concessions to those who are challenging the modernisation programme? As the Minister said in his statement—this is a stark remark—if the company stands still, it faces terminal decline. Is it acceptable in the face of such a dramatic remark for the Minister to admit that the Government have no policy, are proceeding with no Bill, and are capable of doing nothing as the service looks likely to face a risk of terminal decline? Does he agree that if things continue in this way—I do not blame him personally; I am sure it is the Prime Minister and the majority of the Cabinet who are responsible for this frozen impasse—he will leave to the next Government after the election in May whatever wreckage remains of an extremely important public service and the mail system of this country? He seemed powerless to do anything about it. Finally, would it be fair to regard the issue, as I regard it, as a symbol of the Government's continuing ability to modernise and reform our great public services? Do not the facts as set out in the Minister's statement show that on that front this dying Government are weak, impotent, powerless and, like most members of the public, a horrified spectator of events as they unfold in the Royal Mail, over which they no longer have any control and for which they can no longer take any responsibility?