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Royal Mail: Industrial Dispute

My Lords, as is so often the case, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, clearly hit the nail on the head when he described the position in which the Secretary of State now finds himself. I thank the Secretary of State for the Statement, which gives an excellent summary of the problems arising from this strike. He gives the game away towards the end of the Statement when he urges both sides to make every effort to avoid damaging industrial action and resolve this dispute. Of course, he already said in his Statement that he will continue to encourage a settlement but he cannot impose good industrial relations on the company. The Government’s problem now over the strike is the antithesis of Baldwin’s description of the newspaper proprietors of the 1930s: that they had power without responsibility. In this case, the Secretary of State, in the eyes of the public, has responsibility without power. Quite rightly, he will take the view—no doubt he has said so—that the strike is nothing to do with him: that this is for the management of the Royal Mail to deal with, and that it is dealing with it as best it can. Given that that is clearly the Government’s position, I have only two specific questions on the strike. I will then get into the wider issues, which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has raised. The Secretary of State’s statement that it will be far easier for ACAS to play an effective role if the threat of a national strike is lifted ought to be a test for prospective civil servants when they take their Civil Service exams: how to write a euphemism. What that actually means, as I understand it, is that, contrary to what the union wishes—to involve ACAS—the Royal Mail management is not prepared to agree to ACAS being involved unless the threat of the strike is lifted. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State could explain that euphemism and confirm that that is currently the case. The second point about the strike follows on from the interesting debate, in which the Secretary of State did not participate, on the Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes. There is a lot of concern about Treasury deadlines being met on income tax returns, and about credit card deadlines, as my noble friend Lord Newby indicated. The general sense seemed to be that, so long as these things are posted before the required date, all will be well if they do not arrive. However, as I understand it—no doubt the Secretary of State will confirm this—all post boxes will be sealed up if there is a strike and it will not be possible to post anything. I am therefore not quite certain how the answers that were given can actually meet the point that is being made. Perhaps the Secretary of State will deal with that in his final remarks. There is a wider point to make, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, was quite right to raise it. Those of us who considered the Postal Services Bill in this House are well aware of the Secretary of State’s commitment to the Bill—a commitment that was not, if I may say so, entirely shared by his colleagues right at the back of your Lordships’ House; it clearly was not shared by a large number of his colleagues in another place, which is why the Bill had to be withdrawn. However, given that we are in this strike situation, it behoves him to tell us what the Government propose to do about the key issues in that Bill. What does the Secretary of State propose to do about the pensions deficit? There are some mealy-mouthed words in the Statement about the trustees looking at this, but we all know that there is a massive pensions deficit. What are the Government going to do about it? What do they think will happen to the modernisation process, which fed into the government proposals to bring in a minority stake? Will the Government endeavour to bring back a Bill to enable third parties to come in with capital and their expertise to improve the modernisation process, or has that proposal been dropped? What are the Government going to do about the changes in regulation that were enshrined in the Bill? I think that everyone, across the parties, agreed with the proposed changes of regulation. I understand that the CWU was keen for that to be brought in. What are the Government going to do about that? Finally, and most crucially, the Postal Services Bill enshrined in legislation, for the first time, confirmation of the universal service obligation. Are the Government, without that Postal Services Bill, still totally committed to the universal service obligation? What are they going to do to ensure that when we get past this strike that USO is enshrined in our life?