Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Ian Murray and Fiona O'Donnell

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Fiona O’Donnell]

rose—

[Ian Murray]

rose—

Currency in Scotland after 2014

Debate between Ian Murray and Fiona O'Donnell

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. The SNP has ditched its euro credentials and its wish to join the euro in favour of a currency union with the United Kingdom that it is already in. I believe its slogan was “independence in Europe” but it now seems to be “independence in the UK with the pound.” Will it rush to adopt the euro—indeed, will Scotland actually be in the EU—or will it join the only other two countries in the world that tie their currency informally to another? This is a great quiz question: which countries are those? The answer is Panama and El Salvador, which use the dollar. [Interruption.] I can hear the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) chuntering, “Greece”, and that is exactly the point that I have been making.

The First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Scotland this morning made the unedifying assertion that Scotland will default on its debt if no currency union is forthcoming. That ill-thought-through, toys-out-of-the-pram threat is a recipe for economic crisis and political conflict. It is reckless and irresponsible, to say the least.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an amazing speech. Is not that statement—that throwing of the toys out of the pram—proof that the SNP would be incapable of conducting normal relationships with the rest of the UK post independence?

[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A currency union requires some kind of political co-ordination to ensure that the stabilisers make the currency work. What better political stability could we have than being the United Kingdom, with a strong Scottish Parliament as part of that overall economic and political framework?

Postal Services Bill

Debate between Ian Murray and Fiona O'Donnell

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

I support the new clause. I must say at the outset that I do not share a flat with the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), but it sounds like a fun flat to be in, none the less.

I hope that the Minister is listening to what hon. Members are saying. Prior to any sale or transfer of a post office company, an agreement should be secured between the new owners of Royal Mail and the Post Office for a period of 10 years—that is the suggestion, but it could be any number of years—in order to gain that transfer. Under the Bill, a privatised Royal Mail could break the historic link with the post office network and use another outlet such as Tesco, as the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) mentioned. That might force customers to go much further to post offices to register parcels or to use the other services that people enjoy.

The Government have shown ambivalence towards post offices in this process. Everyone has talked of the importance of maintaining the link and the inter-business agreement between Royal Mail and the Post Office in some fashion, to ensure that the post office network is maintained. Although new clause 2 is not perfect, it would oblige a privatised Royal Mail to maintain the inter-business agreement with Post Office Ltd. The Government refused to listen to similar calls from the Opposition in Committee. Indeed, the Opposition spokesmen made those points clearly throughout the 20 sittings. Unless the Government make a strategic decision to put business through the post office network, the future of the network as we know it will be in significant danger.

As we have heard throughout the debate, the post office network has a declining share of the market because of the model in which it operates. The Government have an obligation to donate as many services as it is in their gift to donate to the post office network.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Given how many post offices are running at a loss and how many are on the market, does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to the future of post offices that they have a period of at least 10 years to plan and recover?

[Ian Murray]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. The hon. Member for Northampton South was clear about the size of the revenues that go through the post office network, and therefore the survival of many post offices in rural and deprived areas would be in jeopardy. The figure has been mentioned of 900 post offices being temporarily or long-term out of business. It is clear from such figures that the business model for the post office network is unviable at the moment, let alone after taking an additional £343 million out of it.

Tory and Lib Dem MPs were happy to use the Post Office for their own political ends when it suited them in opposition. The post office network was a political hot potato for many years in my constituency of Edinburgh South. It seems shameful that the Liberal Democrat party, which has made a living out of saving post offices—or pretending to save post offices—now sits in judgment on Royal Mail and threatens many thousands of post offices, if not the entire network.

That the Government are not prepared to put a straightforward clause into the Bill to guarantee the future of post offices calls into question the logic of allocating more than £1.3 billion of taxpayers’ money to subsidise and refurbish them. There are still no bankable contracts for additional Government work for post offices, in spite of the warm words, and the requests of the National Federation of SubPostmasters. It is not clear that the Post Office will even win the renewal contract from the Department for Work and Pensions following the benefit changes.

The Government’s failure to take forward Labour’s plans for a people’s bank at the Post Office is yet another Lib Dem manifesto pledge broken. They are turning their backs on the very people out of whom they made political capital for many years.