Postal Services Bill

Glenda Jackson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

We cannot do it in that way. Of course, other companies have access to the market, subject to strict conditions, but we envisage that Royal Mail will continue to be the universal service provider: that is the basis on which we are proceeding.

The Bill puts in place three new safeguards: the platinum-plating, so to speak. First, the Bill ensures that no proposal to reduce the minimum requirements of the universal postal service can be proposed until the new regulator, Ofcom, has conducted a review of user needs. Secondly, any proposal to reduce the requirements of the universal postal service must be subject to a majority vote in both Houses of Parliament. Thirdly, any reduction in the minimum requirements cannot change the uniform nature of the service. The Bill states that the service and the price must be the same across the whole of the UK. I hope that Members in all parts of the House will support these new protections for the universal postal service.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Earlier, the Secretary of State said that one of the central issues in the modernisation and advancement of Royal Mail and the Post Office was—I am paraphrasing—the removal of political intervention, but he is now talking about a contract that is surely still politically in the hands of politicians. How can he possibly stand there and guarantee that there will be no changes whatsoever to the universal service? I cannot, for the life of me, imagine any private company signing up for a contract that is immutable, which is surely what he is saying the changes will bring about.

[Vince Cable]

I am not making these commitments as political commitments. They are enshrined in regulation—regulation that will be strengthened and has the force of law. Of course, that is political in the widest sense if one regards this Parliament as political. The protections are going to be legal and regulatory; this is not a matter of political discretion for individual politicians.

We will also be taking other measures to secure the universal postal service. The greatest threat to postal services comes from the decline in mail volumes and the rise of e-mail and the internet. It therefore makes sense for the postal sector to be regulated alongside the broader communications market. For that reason, the Bill will transfer responsibility for the regulation of the postal services sector from Postcomm to Ofcom. Ofcom has a deep understanding of the wider communications markets and will be well placed to take decisions as regulator of postal services. The Bill will also give Ofcom a primary duty to exercise its functions as regulator of postal services in a way that it considers will secure the universal postal service—and it will need to consider the financial viability and efficiency of the universal service in taking its decisions.

We want to ensure that the new regulatory framework is proportionate to the needs of the market. We want to allow for rapid deregulation where there is competition. All mail providers need to be able to operate in a fair and effective market as soon as possible. As an ultimate protection for the universal service, the Bill includes provisions for special arrangements should a universal service provider be at risk of entering into insolvency proceedings—a remote risk but one that we have to consider. The arrangements would allow the appointment of a postal administrator whose objective would be to ensure that the universal service is maintained. We do not expect ever to have to use these provisions, but they provide an additional safeguard for the universal service. These measures mirror those that have been taken in the energy and water sectors.

--- Later in debate ---

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Earlier today I passed a lobby outside the House, whose protagonists were carrying placards that bore two messages. The first was “Bash the bankers, not the pensioners”, and the other was “Save our services”. Indeed, there is a lobby of pensioners in the House even as we speak. The Secretary of State highlighted the fact that post offices are of particular importance to pensioners. However, I thought he rather narrowed the importance of post offices, certainly for my constituents, because post offices are vital not only to pensioners but to people with disabilities, the unemployed and young parents. One must give credit to the new coalition Government, because their record is 100% consistent: despite their pronouncements to the contrary, all their policies attack the most vulnerable and the poorest in our society.

There are no guarantees whatever in the Bill that post offices and sub-post offices will be maintained. It is easy to say that there will be no more post office closures—I am somewhat confused on whether that covers sub-post offices—but without cast-iron guarantees, my constituents will suffer inordinately. All of us who were here in the last Parliament and who are most grateful and humble for being returned remember our struggles to save our sub-post offices. That is certainly true of my constituency and throughout London. I lost four in the last round, and six in the two previous rounds. Such closures impact on more than the individual users of the sub-post office. London is essentially a sequence of small villages, and sub-post offices tend to be a major part of the smaller, local economies. People go to the post office and do a little bit of shopping in their local shops. Once the post office goes, those other shops lose out.

The Government are telling us that the retail sector will be the essential driving force of our growing economy, but if there are no guarantees that essential counter services will be maintained, the economic fallout could be greater.

[Jesse Norman]

As it is true that no Parliament can bind its successors, and as we have in legislation a clear statement that there will no further closures, could the hon. Lady specify what guarantees she is looking for that cannot be found in the Bill?

[Glenda Jackson]

With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, his Secretary of State stood at the Dispatch Box and gave categorical assurances that his proposals will revitalise and re-energise our postal services. He assured us not only that our postal services will not be diminished, but that they will expand and grow, and become more inventive and entrepreneurial. There is an apparent guarantee that national delivery will be set in stone. I asked him how the Government could guarantee for perpetuity a privatisation of postal services without entrepreneurs, who apparently will come rushing in, but the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) said that entrepreneurs would run a million miles away from putting money into the Post Office.

The Secretary of State made those guarantees and cast them in stone, so why can he not do that in respect of sub-post offices? I am perfectly prepared to accept changes to post offices up to a point, but all the sub-post offices I know are additions to retail outlets, not the primary source of business for the individuals running them.

The public still firmly believe, despite the vagaries—or worse than vagaries—of the changes to our postal service, that the Post Office is a public service. The people of this country take great pride in it and believe it to be central and essential to their way of life. It matters not how many times one points out to them the decline in the number of letters we write, as everybody would apparently sooner send an e-mail because that is easier. I can understand that, but I am certain that I am not the only Member of this House who despairs of the day when e-mails were invented, because of the time it takes to send and read them. And what do we get at the end of it? I shall not go down that road, but I can see by hon. Members’ smiles that my experience is shared universally.

None the less, the public value and treasure the public service provided by post offices, and not only because, as for many of my constituents, it frequently used to be the case—this has improved slightly lately—that the only other human face that some people saw was that of the postman. In many instances, the only people whom they had conversations with were those they met in our sub-post offices. I have come across more than one example of a sub-postmaster missing seeing a particular pensioner over a comparatively short time span and alerting social services and the police because he was concerned that she might have had an accident or that something else might be wrong, and being proven right. Post offices do not simply offer a commercial service, whereby we can communicate with each other via the post; they offer a public service through which the public value each other and, in essence, take care of each other.

This Bill is yet another brick in the wall of what the Government are attempting to convince us will be their big society, if all these policies go through. However, it seems to me that what these policies will produce is the big broken society. If we lose the capacity to care for each other, what will be the point if we do manage to close the national deficit? It is the human beings of this country who are of primary importance. They are the ones who are going to get us out of this mess. Their feelings about public services are not limited to what the Government tell us are their priorities—the NHS and education. Rather, it is the public service in our postal services that they value. As others have said, there are aspects of the Bill to which one can give comparative support, but the Bill as a whole is an unmitigated mess.