Postal Services Bill

Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Lord Young of Norwood Green

Wednesday 6th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft]

My Lords, it is precisely because I do not want what is now known in so many quarters as snail mail to be consigned entirely to our heritage that I have tabled Amendments 25C and 30. I must confess that I have never done a mail round, but I have pushed numerous leaflets through numerous doors. Sadly, I never encountered a famous actor in a silk dressing gown or, indeed, a famous actor at all, but I met a lot of Rottweilers. I therefore know that our post men and women take risks when they go out on their rounds, and I applaud them and want them to continue doing that, but I do not believe that we should isolate Royal Mail from competition in the long term. That is what these amendments are about.

They take it for granted that we will have a regulatory regime that will allow Royal Mail to charge a fair price and to determine what products it offers. We had much discussion about that earlier in the day and received reassurances that the new regulatory regime will be more accommodating. However, there need to be safeguards. Amendment 25C concerns the move over from Postcomm to Ofcom as the regulatory authority. I do not want to malign every regulator, but one has to note that among regulators there are many tendencies towards doing more rather than less. It is somehow in the nature of the beast. Amendment 25C aims to put a line under what the regulator of postal services can touch. It decrees that before the appointed day for the change over from one regulator to another a line will be drawn and no other services should be brought within the scope of the regulation. It may be a technical amendment, but it seems one worth moving. We do not want to see, for instance, motorbike couriers or cycle couriers drawn within the scope of the legislation. There may be many of us who would like to see cycle couriers reined in, particularly those of us who have encountered them while driving, but that is not the role of Ofcom. Amendment 25C is intended simply to make it clear to the market that there are areas of deliveries that will remain free of regulation. I believe that that is important.

Amendment 30 covers the delivery of some of those election addresses that I, for one, have pushed through many doors. As noble Lords will know, the Representation of the People Act 1983 entitles candidates to a free delivery of election mail. I see no reason why we should preserve a monopoly situation here where Royal Mail is the only deliverer of that free address. Assuming that Royal Mail is able to charge a fair and profitable price for delivering what is known as the final mile, it seems perfectly reasonable that any other postal operator should be free to tender for that business. My noble friends Lord Jenkin and Lord Eccles stressed in earlier amendments that what we want to see is a market where competition flourishes. I believe that more competition might generate more business and that Royal Mail could in the end be the winner from that rather than the loser. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I oppose Amendment 25C moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, and Amendment 30 also in her name. I do not think we can say arbitrarily that we are going to draw a line in the sand. Who knows what situations may arise? I did not quite understand that or get a validation of that argument.

As regards Amendment 30, we talked earlier about getting the balance right between trying to ensure the future of the universal service provider and competition. I am not sure why we would want to remove from the universal service provider this important and sensitive material in some cases, with a guaranteed standard of service and delivery of election material. The noble Baroness painted a picture whereby in the future it might be a competitive scenario but for the time being we believe that it should remain with the universal service provider.