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Postal Services Bill

Like many others who have spoken in this debate, I completely opposed the direction of travel of the last Government on Royal Mail and post offices. I therefore oppose this Bill. I very much support the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), because it at least seeks to mitigate some of the most likely impacts and effects of the privatisation measures as far as implications for the post office network are concerned. As legislators, and collectively in this House, we have a duty of intelligent care when it comes to the impact and effects of the legislation that we pass. It is not enough for any of us to say that our judgment of what, as many Members have said, is predictable as regards the future of the post office network—many have recalled the toll of business loss, the loss of Post Office Counters and the loss of post offices in many constituencies in every area—is somehow washed away by the Secretary of State's telling us that it is unthinkable that there would not be a long-term ongoing relationship. It is not washed away if we are told that that is unthinkable by Richard Hooper or the chief executive of Royal Mail. We all know that it is entirely thinkable— and it is not just thinkable, but predictable. The truth about why the Government do not want us to legislate against the unthinkable—surely, as legislators, that is the first thing we should be doing—is not because such a change is unthinkable, but because they think that it is undesirable for the potential investors that they seek for Royal Mail. The Government believe that the sort of measures contained in the new clause would be repellent to potential investors and would-be future buyers of Royal Mail. It has little to do with what the EU will say or anything else. The real business is that such changes are entirely thinkable, which is why it is completely dishonest for people to rely on the claims that a change in the long-term relationship between Royal Mail and the Post Office would be unthinkable. I was struck by the points made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). He began by saying that, in his view, the post office side of the business had always suffered from being a bit of a Cinderella and that the driving force was very much on the Royal Mail side of the business. At the end of his interesting and welcome comments, he suggested that he thought that at some point the Government would consider the need for a clearer contract between Royal Mail and the post office counters, but, again, it was telling that that contract would be revised because of the interests of Royal Mail and the future of that business, not so much because of the post office end of the business. In those circumstances, it is right and proper that this House—now we have been given the opportunity offered by the useful new clause—should make very clear the particular regard that we, collectively and individually, have for the service that post offices provide and could potentially provide in future. There is a danger, which some of us might have added to in this debate, of creating a sense that the demise of post offices as we know them is inevitable and terminal, but I do not believe it is. As many hon. Members have said, there are services into which post offices could better diversify, such as providing a range of different financial services with other businesses or having a much stronger service portal relationship with government and public services in many ways. The best way of allowing the post office network to reinvent and develop itself over a period of years in the aftermath of this privatisation would be to provide a margin of reliability for post offices in terms of the business from Royal Mail on which they have traditionally depended. A figure oft quoted in this debate is the amount of post office business that involves post offices fronting for Royal Mail services. If we deny them that margin of reliability and say, ““It's up to you to find all sorts of new services and new markets and to reinvent yourself,”” we give them an impossible task. It would be an absolute dereliction of our public and legislative duty to do so. I therefore ask all hon. Members to support the new clause. What might constitute a long-term agreement? Back in October, the Secretary of State told the House, and we have since heard it from everyone else, that it is unthinkable that there would not be a long-term contract. In Committee, many hon. Members, including Opposition Front Benchers, asked exactly what that meant. If there is to be a long-term contract, the Government should tell us the substance of the contract and how long is meant by long term, but we have not had that information. It is ridiculous for them to ask us to rely on assurances and indications. It would be like pretending that a tyre is flat only at the bottom—that this is just a small issue that we do not have to worry about and that we can go along and make do on that basis. That simply is not true. What would be a reasonable long-term agreement between these two independent businesses, which are going to be new and separate entities? The Government are made up of two separate and independent entities and they have made a business agreement between them that goes to the maximum it could possibly be—five-year parliamentary terms. They have produced a five-year agreement on the back of which they say that all future Parliaments should be five years rather than the four years that people believe to be reasonable. They have gone to the maximum in that regard, but apparently five years is too long for a business agreement between the Post Office and Royal Mail. They say that would be wrong and undue—apparently it is too long term—but I think it entirely proper that there should be a long-term agreement.