Postal Services Bill

Lord Borrie Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Borrie]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Whitty. He has made a powerful speech not only on the merits of mutualisation, which are largely supported in principle by Her Majesty’s Government, but on the real difficulties of moving to it with any great speed at present.

I have a guilt complex about mutualisation because in the 1990s I was a non-executive director of the Woolwich Building Society, a splendid body with advertisements which many people remember to this day; “I’m with the Woolwich”, they said. I am afraid that I was one of those who followed the lead given by the executive directors, who I of course realise were going to benefit directly as a result. The building society gave up its position as a building society and became a limited company. Not long after that, it was taken over by one of the four leading banks. So, as I said, I have a guilt complex, which has led me—I hope not too far in the opposite direction—to be generally in favour of the idea of mutuality.

I was unable to take part at Second Reading, but I notice that, in principle, there were several voices favouring the creation of a mutual to run the post office network, including the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, from the Conservative Benches, who is not in her seat today, and others. We all know that the Secretary of State, Dr Vince Cable, had indicated even before our Second Reading that the Post Office was “ideally suited” to the co-operative style of structure, where employees—sub-postmasters, sub-postmistresses —and individuals in communities would all have a greater say in how post offices are run.

When the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters spokesman, Mr George Thomson, addressed the Public Bill Committee in another place on 9 November last, he was “very supportive” of the concept of mutualisation of the post office network and particularly attracted, he said, by the John Lewis model. “However”, he added, expressing it rather more strongly than my noble friend Lord Whitty, the Post Office,

“has to be worth mutualising”.—[Official Report, Commons, Postal Services Bill Committee, 9/11/10; col. 29.]

He then expressed great doubt that it was because it was, he said, a “basket case” at the moment.

At Second Reading, Peers who favoured mutualisation were just as doubtful, although their language about the immediate prospects might have been less extreme. My noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, who had another meeting this afternoon but who hoped to be in the Chamber for these discussions, said that mutualisation would not now make “economic sense”.

As my noble friend Lord Whitty has said, Co-operatives UK has been asked by the Government to consider the options. Will they go for a producer co-operative along the lines of John Lewis, which I have already mentioned, or a consumer co-operative like the Co-op shops, or will it be some form of hybrid? The intention behind this amendment is to unravel that over a period of time and come up with a suitable solution, but I am sure, like the many who spoke on this subject at Second Reading, that my noble friend Lord Whitty is just as much in favour, in principle, of a mutual set-up as they were.