Pub Companies
Debate between Ed Davey and Brian Binley(12 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Davey
No, I want to make some progress. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a bit, because in two and a half hours’ evidence to the Select Committee he quizzed me for an hour, so let us be clear that I have answered an awful lot of questions from him.
Why did we not legislate? Some in this Chamber wanted the Government to step in and regulate, and some even believe that we promised to do so, but we promised to take action, and that is what we have done. We have had to consider all the evidence and the action that we would take, and I believe that the action we have taken is appropriate and effective.
We did not legislate because, first, we wanted to act now, not in two or three years’ time. To legislate, we would have had to carry out a lengthy process of consultation, of drafting and of pre-legislative scrutiny, and after that we would have had to fight for a slot in the legislative Sessions. It is highly unlikely that such a slot could have been found quickly.
Secondly, this is a deregulatory Government. Additional regulation should always be a measure of last resort. For the Government to intervene in the commercial contractual relationships between two parties, they must have very good reason. That is in line with the Government’s top priority of achieving strong, sustainable and balanced growth, and generating a climate that supports enterprise and creates jobs.
Thirdly, the Office of Fair Trading found in October 2010 that there were no competition issues affecting consumers in this market. That is a critical point, but I am afraid that the Select Committee report did not discuss it. I am aware that in some circles, it is believed that the OFT is wrong. That is not a view that I share. As Minister with responsibility for competition, I have high confidence in the rigour and accuracy of the OFT. Without evidence of competition issues, the rationale for Government intervention is significantly reduced. That is in contrast to the situation in the groceries market, where the Competition Commission found evidence of competition issues. The Government have therefore committed to introducing a groceries code adjudicator as soon as parliamentary time allows to ensure that large retailers treat their suppliers fairly and lawfully.
Mr Davey
No.
Secondly, when one examines where the relationships between pubcos and licensees have gone wrong, it quickly becomes clear that the major problem is not with the traditional tied tenancy, but with full repairing and insuring leases, which are mostly, but not exclusively, used by the pubcos. There are problems with pre-entry training, transparency and rent guidance not being followed, but not with the basic question of whether a pub is tied for beer. That is why my solution targets full repairing and insuring leases and leaves alone the traditional tied tenancy model, which is used successfully, and for the most part amicably, by local and regional brewers alike.
Thirdly, the market is driving a solution. The figures show that since December 2008, slightly more free-of-tie pubs closed than tied pubs. That is true whether one uses the gross closure rate or the net closure rate, which CAMRA says is more important as it takes account of churning. Furthermore, big pubcos are selling off hundreds of pubs a year, many of which are being bought by family brewers or converting to being free-of-tie. Since December 2008, three times as many free-of-tie pubs have opened than tied pubs and a further 1,300 pubs have converted from being tied to free-of-tie. Where the market is working, the Government do not need to intervene.
Mr Binley
I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way. I remind him that I asked the Secretary of State whether he would uphold the undertaking given by the previous Government that they would act on recommendations from the Select Committee if they were meaningful and in its report. Will the Minister confirm that the Secretary of State said that he would uphold that undertaking? Does he accept that that is the truth of the matter?
Mr Davey
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that he would take action, and we have taken action. Let us be clear that what the Select Committee wanted was legislation to deal with the problem. Through negotiation and using contract law, we have got legally binding codes of practice that are in the spirit of what the Select Committee asked for. More than that, the Committee asked for an adjudicator, and we will have PICAS to adjudicate on the code by February. Not only are we tackling the issues that the Committee raised, we are doing so far more quickly than expected. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that.
Postal Services Bill
Debate between Ed Davey and Brian Binley(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Davey
It is not appropriate for me to comment on the previous management, but I invite my hon. Friend to contact the new chief executive of Royal Mail, Moya Greene, and the new managing director of Post Office Ltd, Paula Vennells. If he seeks to meet them and to listen to them, he will find that the management in Royal Mail and in Post Office Ltd are of the highest calibre.
Mr Binley
I, of course, welcome the Minister’s intervention in that respect. I have no wish to vilify the current management; I just make a statement about why we are in our current position with the Post Office. We have to be realistic if this debate is to have any meaning at all. I have outlined an important reason for being in the position we are in, and I have no fear in doing so.
Mr Davey
I will, of course, address that in detail, if the hon. Lady will let me. However, I first want to stress that it is the commercial incentive in the relationship that is so important. The Labour party forgets that commercial rationale is what makes people work together and what makes partnerships successful, not regulation.
I invite Members to consider the counterfactual of why Royal Mail would end its relationship with the post office network. Many of us fought the previous Government’s post office closure programmes precisely because the public value their local post offices so highly and see them as the natural place for high-quality postal services. As I asked on Second Reading, why would Royal Mail walk away from the Post Office, leaving a vacuum which its competitors would willingly fill? That would be commercial nonsense, and it will not do it.
The new clause would put the contract between Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd on a statutory basis, requiring a minimum duration to the contract of 10 years. Let me explain why I am opposed to this suggestion. I do not believe that legislation is appropriate place for the commercially sensitive terms of a relationship between two independent businesses to be settled. I am unaware of any statutory precedent for the Government requiring particular commercial terms between two independent businesses. When we debated this in Committee, I appealed to Committee members to tell me whether they could find such a precedent. None has appeared, and for good reason. These negotiations are best left to the businesses themselves, who know far better than we in this House their customers, the markets they serve, the products and the services they require of one another.
Mr Binley
I noted that the Minister said, “I do not believe,” and not, “It is a fact.” His not wishing to include this provision in the Bill is a matter of judgment, not a matter of law. May I add something on the idea of there being two independent businesses? In reality, the nation has a sizeable holding in them, so we are not quite talking about two businesses that are quoted on the open market. Would he therefore confirm that there is no legal reason why this arrangement cannot happen, even though it might be breaking new ground?
Mr Davey
I reassure my hon. Friend that I will be coming to this legal point and that I wish to address the remarks made by the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), but I stress that we were not given any statutory precedent for this arrangement. Contractual negotiations between these businesses will involve a complex interaction of many different factors, such as pricing, volumes, service levels and duration. If we adopted the new clause, there is a real danger that we could end up with an IBA that would damage the post office network. That has not been discussed at length and we should concern ourselves with it. The new clause focuses on the duration of the contract and, thus, would simply not achieve our shared objective of ensuring the strongest possible commercial relationship between Post Office Ltd and Royal Mail. The experts—the businesses and their advisers—should negotiate and agree the commercial relationship between the two businesses for the long term, rather than us here in Parliament.
On the key issue, Donald Brydon made it clear in his evidence to the Public Bill Committee that Post Office Ltd and Royal Mail would sign an agreement for the longest legally permissible period before a future separation. As shareholder, the Government will ensure that that commitment is met before any separation. I hope that the House will welcome this new commitment; we are making it very clear that we will ensure that Royal Mail delivers on the commitment that it has given, repeated and outlined to the Committee.
Mr Davey
This Government are governing. It was the previous Government who moved away from taking action on Royal Mail, who closed post offices and who did not take action. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we must make judgments, and we are making judgments. I can tell him the judgment that we will not make: the judgment that the previous Government made, which was that the way to sort out the post office network was to close thousands of post offices. We will not do that. The Government can and will help to create the conditions in which both businesses can flourish in partnership with one another.
One thing is certain. A struggling Royal Mail will lead to problems for the Post Office. The Bill introduces the ability to bring in much needed private capital for Royal Mail to invest in its transformation, so that it can offer the best service to its customers. It is important, too, that the Post Office continues to offer the best possible service to Royal Mail as well as to other current and potential clients. I am sure that hon. Members are well aware following the debate that we have committed funding of £1.34 billion, so that Post Office Ltd can invest in its network to ensure that that happens. For example, Post Office—
Mr Davey
No, not yet.
For example, Post Office Ltd is piloting branches that offer greater flexibility and convenience in customer services, such as longer opening hours. The Committee heard evidence from Paula Vennells, the Post Office’s managing director, that those branches offer customers opening hours that are between 40% and 60% longer than current opening hours. That is the real change that the post office network needs. That is the change that will attract more customers and will mean that we do not repeat the appalling closure programmes that we saw under the previous Government.
Mr Binley
I want to pin the Minister down, because it is vital that we do. He said that there was a “significant risk” that we might be challenged by the European Courts on competition matters. Yet the two organisations have agreed that it is vital that they have an agreement. How can the EU challenge the Government on that matter when there is an open statement to the effect that it is what is needed and what is good?
Mr Davey
Let me take my hon. Friend back to the point I was making about articles 101, 4(3) and 102. The point I was making was not that the two businesses cannot have an IBA. That is clear—they have one now, and they have committed to refreshing it or to creating a new one. I gave the commitment to the House today that we, as shareholder, will ensure that that happens before there is a separation. I hope that my hon. Friend will welcome that. The risk is about legislation and I hope he understands that point.
Postal Services Bill
Debate between Ed Davey and Brian Binley(13 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)
I start by thanking the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), and all the other hon. Members, for their contribution to today’s debate. The quality of the debate is testament to the importance that this House attaches to two of Britain’s great institutions: Royal Mail and the Post Office. May I particularly congratulate the hon. Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord) on his maiden speech? He may not be aware of it, but I visited a post office in his constituency to look at one of the pilots for our reforms. Will he send my regards to Mr Patel at the West End post office, who has certainly influenced my thinking?
Both sides of the House recognise the extent to which our constituents value Royal Mail’s universal postal service. No one who witnessed the passionate debates over the previous Government’s post office closure programme can underestimate how deeply communities across our country feel about their local post offices. That is why the Government feel so strongly about the Bill: we believe that what is at stake is no less than the very survival of the universal postal service and Britain’s network of post offices. If we do not reform those two institutions, attract private capital and private sector disciplines into Royal Mail and tackle the underlying economic challenges to the post office network, their future in a digital world of e-mail and internet services is bleak.
Some Members wanted me to blame past management for all Royal Mail’s ills. My hon. Friends the Members for Northampton South (Mr Binley) and for Southport (Dr Pugh), in particular, wanted me to criticise the quality of the management in the past. I am not going to take up that kind offer. What I will say is that the current chief executive, who was appointed by this Government—Moya Greene, who came from Canada Post—is an excellent chief executive and is already taking the tough decisions that need to be taken. It is interesting that she and Royal Mail support the Bill. They know that we need to get capital into Royal Mail. They know that it needs to be released from Treasury control.
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend has corrected the record, and I can say that we have that good management with Moya Greene.
The real challenges of the digital world, as the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) said, apply to all postal administrations across the world. It is the deep challenges that face Royal Mail and the Post Office that make the position of the Opposition at best incredible and at worst downright irresponsible. They know the problems that Royal Mail faces: the decline in letter volumes as e-mail volumes grow exponentially, the large losses the company has made in recent times, and the incomparably large pension deficit. We know that they know, because just last year they said the same thing, and put a Bill before Parliament to address those very same problems. I have that Bill here—but unfortunately it was not brought down the corridor from the other place for us all to debate in this Chamber. If it had been, the similarities in the Bill would have meant that many of the questions raised in this debate could have been debated then. So, let me address some of the questions that I have been asked.
The hon. Member for Vauxhall talked about foreign ownership. She may remember that when her Government tabled their Bill there was concern on the Labour Benches that TNT and Deutsche Post might buy Royal Mail, so she has an issue to raise. What is often forgotten in this debate is that British investors already own 30% of Deutsche Post. That is the real world: investors invest in good companies.
The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) had worries that the royal associations would somehow be broken as a result of privatisation. The Queen will continue to approve all stamps that bear her image, as she does now. The Royal Mail brand is valuable and we will put safeguards in place against its misuse. We have initiated discussions with the Palace for that very purpose. I should tell the hon. Gentleman, who claimed that more post offices closed under the Conservative Government, that he is wrong. In 18 years of Conservative government fewer post offices closed than in 13 years of Labour government.
Coalition colleagues might be concerned because of the similarities between our Bill and the Labour Bill. They are so similar that we half expected the Labour party to feel duty-bound to support our Bill.
For example, there are almost identical proposals on pensions, except that our proposals are slightly more favourable to Royal Mail employees. The clauses on regulation are also similar, except that our Bill introduces new safeguards for the universal postal service that were strangely absent from the previous Government’s Bill. Our Bill rebalances the regulatory framework, putting the universal service and its financial sustainability at its heart.
Those ought to be major areas of agreement, but we did not get that tonight. We heard some bizarre criticisms from Opposition Front Benchers. They said that we are not addressing the problems of the regulatory system, but it is their regulatory system. They do not appear to have read the Bill, because we are making changes to that regulatory system.
The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East brought in Ofcom in the previous Government’s Bill. It has a duty to reduce unnecessary regulation, which will assist the legislation. The Bill requires cost transparency and accounting separation to deal with many of the regulatory problems that my hon. Friends the Members for Southport and for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) raised in the debate.
Surprisingly, Opposition Members also raised concerns about the pensions solution. The hon. Member for Vauxhall said that it is possible to achieve a solution on pensions without a sale. It would be irresponsible to ask the taxpayer to take on an £8 billion deficit without securing private capital and disciplines and without transferring future risk from the taxpayer. This is a package deal, which is what Hooper argued for and what we are delivering.
Richard Hooper made it clear that action is needed if we are to secure the future of a universal postal service. His document, “Modernise or Decline”, sets out those options. When the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) questioned whether a privatised Royal Mail would threaten the universal service obligation, he was ignoring the evidence put forward by Sir Richard Hooper. I can only think that he has not read the Bill. If he had read it, he would know that it is all about safeguarding the universal postal service of Royal Mail and the Post Office, recognising the particular importance of those services to our rural communities.
The six-day, one-price-goes-anywhere universal service obligation is enshrined on the face of the Bill, but we have not stopped there. The Bill introduces new safeguards to protect that service, ensuring that any future change must be properly debated by Parliament, must retain the uniformity of the service and must take into account the interests of postal service users, which, of course, includes rural communities. The scaremongering of the Scottish nationalists flies in the face of both the facts and the text of the Bill.
Returning to the substance of today’s debate, despite our producing a Bill that is better than the previous Government’s Bill—better for Royal Mail employees’ pensions and better for the protection of the universal service—the Opposition are determined to oppose it. Where are the huge differences that are causing the Opposition such problems? We want to provide Royal Mail employees with shares, so workers can benefit from the prosperous future for Royal Mail that our reforms will enable. The previous Government talked about involving employees, but they argued with the unions about giving employees shares and then argued with themselves. This Government are united, and we are going to do it through the largest employee share scheme by percentage of shares of any major British privatisation. For the first time ever, I believe, we are mandating an employee share scheme on the face of a Bill. As a member of a party that championed employee share ownership for decades in opposition, I could not be more proud to present this radical measure to the House tonight. I pay special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who did so much to develop those issues when we were in opposition.
I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), who explained how important employee share ownership can be in driving productivity. He was concerned that only 10% of shares will go to the employee share scheme, but I can tell him that the Bill refers to “at least 10%”. I was pleased by the support for employee shares from my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman). His chairmanship of the all-party group on employee ownership shows that he knows about that area. He raised a constituency case, which I will take up if he writes to me.
Another key difference between Labour’s Bill and our Bill is our mutualisation proposal for the Post Office. Sub-postmasters, Post Office employees and communities can all have a say in how their post offices are run. The Co-operative model is a huge example of the big society and something that the old Fabians would have classed as public ownership, but the Labour party is going to vote against the Bill.
Let me clarify the mutualisation proposals for the Opposition, who do not seem to understand what they are all about. Post Office Ltd, the national company that franchises to individual post offices and chains of post offices, would become a mutual if our proposals go ahead. We believe that having a national mutual similar to the Co-op would have many practical benefits and would align the incentives of sub-postmasters with those of the company and their main franchisor. When it comes to modernisation and putting services online, it is important to have aligned incentives.