Post Office Ltd

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, I will follow up on the questions asked in the other place yesterday. When responding to a Post Office Question last week, the Minister said that this whole debacle and scandal had shown the Post Office in a good light—not Post Office Ltd but the postmasters and postmistresses. We agree with that. What changes was the Secretary of State looking to achieve in the removal of the chair, and what is the timeline for rebuilding trust in Post Office Ltd?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. To clarify, the question was whether the Post Office brand was damaged. Many people would say that it was a toxic brand. My argument was simply that if one believes that the real Post Office is actually the postmasters, they are the heroes of the day. If anything, their brand has been enhanced but there is no doubt that the management and oversight of the Post Office has been seriously compromised over many years.

Perhaps we should remind ourselves how this company operates, which is on an arm’s-length basis. It is owned by the Government—the taxpayer—and there is one shareholder: HMG. Yet, like many of our public bodies, it is now managed on an almost separate, arm’s-length basis. In doing so, a board is created that looks like a public company, but when is a public company not a public company? It is when there is a board that does not do the job it is meant to be doing.

There was an executive management team, and the role of non-executive directors is to challenge that team. The role of the chairman is, principally, to represent the shareholders and to call the executive management to account. Clearly, that has not happened here. Since 2015, a whole new set of executive managers has been put in place, as well as a new board. In 2023, there were three new independent directors. We have the chair, and through the increased scrutiny resulting from the Government perhaps being more interventionist, some disagreements within the board have come to light. The Secretary of State believes that the current arrangements are not working, so it was agreed by mutual consent to part company. We have taken decisive action to change course and improve, rather than to wait and hope that the situation improves.