Postal Services Bill

Debate between Lord Boswell of Aynho and Lord Jenkin of Roding

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, I listened to the noble Lord with some interest, but I should have thought that, if ever a brand name would be of immense value to anyone who bought the business afterwards, it is that of Royal Mail. I hope that I am not being indiscreet but when I discussed privatising Royal Mail while I was in the Department of Industry in 1981, I was told brusquely, “It’s royal—we can't touch it”, so it has been delayed for my noble friends to bring to the point now which I would really have liked to have seen a long time ago.

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, perhaps I may comment first on the amendment which has just been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark. We all have an interest in the continuation of the proud name “Royal Mail”, which honours those who have worked in that service over 300 years. All of us here should respect that, not only those who are historians or antiquarians. At this point, perhaps I had better declare my interest in archives and my involvement with the all-party group, of which the House may be aware. However, if the noble Lord looks forward to the proposed new clause in government Amendment 54, which has been grouped with this amendment for convenience, we might have a more substantive discussion. I look forward to the Minister's comments on that amendment, on which I shall speak in a moment.

I make no apology for wanting to see that this is got right because it is not necessary to be a fan of TS Eliot’s poetry—although I am one—to understand that the past is very much part of the present and the future and that it should not be possible, in a mechanistic way as it were, to unpick them or to take no notice of them. It is really important that the heritage and pride which have gone with that name and its tradition are celebrated and maintained, not least because it is a matter of obvious sensitivity in relation to the monarchy. We do not need to speak about that in detail but the monarch’s head appears on our postage stamps and her title attaches to our postal service. We hope that will continue.

However, as I said in Committee, any of us who have been to see the Royal Mail’s museum and archive, which is the subject of the government’s proposed new clause tabled in Amendment 54, will know the richness of what is there. There is complexity and fascination in how designs were considered, modified and put into circulation and that is all part of the tradition which should go with this. It is important that we make these commercial changes—I am not resiling from that—and that we do not spend unreasonable money on resourcing the past, however important it is. I said in Committee that there were some concerns about the resources available for the existing archive.

I thoroughly welcome the proposed new clause in Amendment 54 which is really, if I may say so, a considerable tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Hampstead, to his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Christopher, to my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and, modestly, I hope, to the little contribution that I made on a warm early April afternoon when we first discussed this in Committee. We raised it with the Minister, who said that she would go and think about it. She has clearly done so and we should give her a good measure of credit for that.

The proposed new clause which the Minister intends to bring forward in the Government's name is promising. For a start, it is prescriptive as to duty in that the Royal Mail company will have to send a report, which she will have to consider. That report will have to come to Parliament and anyone who has been here for any length of time is aware that that provides a channel for questions, an opportunity for expressions of dissatisfaction and so forth. Yet it does not inhibit the company in the nature and form of what it does, which is the right approach. If we sat there saying, “This is what we will do with the archive and this is the precise specification of the new and successor arrangements”, we might live to regret that and not be able to deliver it, so flexibility is desirable.

However, because these things tend to be forgotten—unless I am under a misconception; if so, my noble friend the Minister will no doubt disabuse me—it is also probably right to record that in creating this new duty, which goes beyond the existing obligation of Royal Mail, there will be obligations in relation to the archive and what we call the state process of the business. The opportunity to retain postal material and the obligation to report on what is being done is a new and welcome duty. However, we are substantially talking about a concern, which we should never forget when the ownership of public assets is moving from the public to the private sector either in whole or in part, to impose the right kind of traditions and conditions to ensure that the element of public service is not overlooked and that a great archive’s future is adequately secured.

Finally, the Government have been wise in not being too precise on the nature of this by providing, in effect, an ongoing and if necessary contingent liability on successor organisations. I do not particularly mind who owns the archive, provided that it is available publicly as a jewel in the crown and an asset that is on display, that it is adequately resourced and that we may long continue to celebrate it despite the ownership changes which are taking place under the Bill.