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Royal Mail: Industrial Dispute

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State is here today to make the Statement, but my, what a bleak picture he paints. We share his hope that this unfortunate dispute will be resolved quickly and with as little damage as possible to the Royal Mail. He did not mention the fact that the Communication Workers Union has invented a new pretext for industrial action: namely, the decision of Royal Mail management to take on more temporary workers than usual this autumn. Quite rightly, managerial decisions are managerial decisions, but anything that reduces inconvenience to the customer is surely to be welcomed. I note that the Secretary of State uses the language of regret. Sadly, as I have pointed out previously, he cannot bring himself to apologise for 12 years of apathy and inaction on the part of the Government. These strikes against modernisation are the inevitable outcome of that ministerial vacillation which he vainly attempted to end. There is far too much finger-pointing in politics, but we are here to hold Ministers to account. Everyone agrees with that. Although the Secretary of State's words will be carefully weighed on the official record, as one would expect, we could all hear in his voice in this Chamber today, and see etched on his face, the raw frustration of someone who knows what needs to be done but has not been allowed to get on with the job. It is now almost a year since the publication of Richard Hooper’s authoritative report on the future of postal services in the United Kingdom. In response to that excellent report, the Secretary of State produced a Postal Services Bill in February, closely modelled on the Hooper proposals, and we in this House spent five days in Committee and a day on Report during March, April and May. The Secretary of State rightly observed that all three parts of the Bill—the injection of private capital and expertise, a rescue package for the pension scheme, and regulatory reform—had to be taken together or not at all. As he will recall, he said at Second Reading that the Royal Mail and its people, ""need the full package of measures we are proposing".—[Official Report, 10/3/09; col. 1067.]" The Secretary of State was gracious enough to remark that, in due course, our efforts in this House had helped to improve the Bill considerably, in particular by opening the door, as we did, to the chance for employees to own shares. Yet on 1 July, he came to this House to advise us that his and our efforts had come to naught. The Postal Services Bill has now been dumped, as I understand it, into cold storage by a Government of the walking dead. The only Statement that is worth the Secretary of State making to this House today is one to the effect that he will personally ensure that the Postal Services Bill proceeds to Royal Assent as soon as possible. In speech after speech, he has emphasised the urgent need for action on the Royal Mail and rued the fact—I remember him doing this vividly—that legislation to modernise the organisation had not been brought forward 10 years earlier. The Conservative Party has supported him all the way, both here and in another place, and I am personally authorised to reassert here, today, that our views have not changed and will not change. We all know that the views of the Secretary of State have not changed. How it must pain him to see this country transported back into the dark days of the 1970s when trade union officials could pay a visit to No. 10 and stop a major industrial reform in its tracks. The sad fact is that, as it succumbs to strike action, the Royal Mail finds itself unable to deliver, and the Secretary of State cannot deliver either. I suppose this is all too symbolic of a wider failure in government. I also begin to suspect that many of the Secretary of State’s colleagues are behaving like an army in chaotic retreat. It is little wonder that the employees of the Royal Mail are unsettled. Their organisation is beset with uncertainty, their pension scheme is on the verge of insolvency and the Government offer nothing but regrets. Yes, this strike is suicidal, but it is a case of assisted suicide. The Conservative Party takes nothing for granted, but the Labour Party seems already to have the cloying smell of defeat in its nostrils. We all sense the Secretary of State’s simmering frustration, but I do not think he is a man to give up so easily, and I am sure he does not share the wan, supine, feeble defeatism that so many of his colleagues evince about the future of the Royal Mail. To use his words again, the Postal Services Bill, ""will lead to a new, modern, relevant and, above all, successful framework for the future of postal services in this country".—[Official Report, 10/3/09; col. 1133.]" Where is that optimism now? Where are these sunlit uplands? Today, we have heard an apology of a Statement when what we deserved was a Statement of apology. The Royal Mail is now in crisis, and I reaffirm what we on these Benches have always said: the Secretary of State may not be able to count upon the support of his own party in the other place for the Postal Services Bill, but I repeat today the unstinting support from the Conservative Party for the passage of that legislation. We hope to see it complete all its stages in another place at the earliest opportunity because we are proud to support the conclusions of Richard Hooper and the Postal Services Bill. It is just very sad that so few of the Secretary of State’s colleagues can make the same assertion.