Postal Services Bill
Debate between Lord Sentamu and Baroness Howe of Idlicote
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I sympathise with these amendments. They reflect a number of concerns that those of us who spoke at Second Reading raised. I was certainly one of those as far as mutualisation was concerned. I had a great deal of sympathy, too, for the concept of banking in local post offices, but that has clearly been firmly ruled out by the Government. That does not mean, however, that they should not be thinking of ways in which they could satisfy the concerns. There should be some return to Parliament for an assurance that the route down which the Government are going will be in the best interests of those concerned. I thought the comments made by my noble friend Lord Cameron about rural areas were extremely important. The post offices are important for the sustainability of those local areas.
I hope that when the Minister replies she will feel able to give more assurance than we have had so far on this issue. I commend the amount of money available and the way in which the Government have thought through this Bill in order for it to be sustainable for the future. However, despite all the money—we will no doubt hear details after the Budget of other ways in which the Post Office and postal services will be helped—it would be in everyone’s interest if the Minister could say that there will be a hard look at reassurance on some of the many important points that have been made in this group of amendments.
The Archbishop of York
My Lords, under Amendment 21A, one of the greatest regrets about the manufacturing base of this country is that companies in the public interest were disposed of without the kind of assurance that is being asked for here. If we look at steel, coal-mining and our car manufacturing bases, public interest in those companies was disposed of in the hope that the people who took them on would make them more viable, but when they took them over they explained that these businesses were not viable. Before we knew where we were our car manufacturing base and our steel industry were not about any more.
It worries me that if you get rid of any public interest—in the case of the Post Office, it is the Crown’s interest—before you are quite certain that whatever company is created will be viable at least through some financial times, you will be in real difficulty. It would be very easy for whoever takes these organisations on to say “By the way, when we looked at the books, they were not what we thought they were”. Then someone else buys it and takes it on, and before you know where you are the Royal Mail and those other places are not about.
Although it is difficult to put it in the Bill, the assurance that this amendment seeks is absolutely necessary. As long as there still is Crown interest in the Post Office, there is a chance that we may do it properly. As soon as that goes—before there is the assurance sought in this amendment—I am afraid that we may end up with what happened to British Steel, coal-mining and the car industry.