Postal Services Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Bob Russell]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes an important and valid point. Those who inherit this Bill, when it becomes an Act, will need to take that on board.

I think I am one of the few people in the House who was once employed by the Post Office. I joined the company in 1973, when it was Post Office Telecommunications. It then became British Telecommunications—that was the first significant split—and it was then privatised. The rest is history, as they say. Many people still refer to that great British institution as the General Post Office, even though it must be 40 or 50 years since the GPO ceased to exist—I am not sure exactly when it was—in the same way as they still refer to the boy scouts, even though they have not been boy scouts for decades.

Returning to the point that the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) made, I am grateful for this trip down memory lane because when the previous Postal Services Bill came before the House, the shadow Chancellor was the responsible Minister and he had some harsh words to say about the previous Administration. He said:

“If I was being kind, I would call their stewardship maladroit. If I was being unkind, I would say that Postman Pat’s black and white cat would have provided better stewardship of the Post Office over the term of the previous Government.”—[Official Report, 15 February 2000; Vol. 344, c. 868.]

It is fair to say that we are now back to the modern Postman Pat and the Specsavers advert.

There are 11,905 post offices in the UK, the vast majority of which are sub-post offices run as franchises by sub-postmasters.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a 10-year agreement would be a better system for securing the future of the Post Office, especially given that the future of perhaps as many as 1,500 post offices across the United Kingdom might be in question?

[Bob Russell]

I am grateful for that intervention because the thrust and purpose of my new clause is exactly to enable the new, privatised Royal Mail to ensure that business continues to go to the Post Office and our sub-post offices. There is a general perception of the Post Office and Royal Mail as being one organisation, and I acknowledge that I regard it in that way. I know that they operate as two separate business entities, but just as when British Telecom moved away from the Post Office, it takes time for people to come to terms with the fact that they are two different animals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Evans]

I know Quedgeley post office, because I was the Labour party candidate in Cheltenham in 2005. I know Gloucester quite well and I know that Quedgeley is a lovely part of the world. If the hon. Gentleman is looking for support to keep its post office open, he should give me a call.

[Jim Shannon]

Be the postmaster.

[Chris Evans]

I will not be the postmaster, as I have enough on my plate as it is.

As I was saying, we seem to have enough of a problem getting people to become postmasters. If postmasters start losing a large amount of their business, how we will recruit people into these positions? Nobody becomes a postmaster in the hope of becoming a millionaire. Perhaps I am naive, but I believe that people become postmasters because they want to serve their community. They want to be part of their community and provide a service, but who in their right mind would want to be a postmaster when they are having their business taken away? That situation is a tragedy.

--- Later in debate ---

What would be a reasonable long-term agreement between these two independent businesses, which are going to be new and separate entities? The Government are made up of two separate and independent entities and they have made a business agreement between them that goes to the maximum it could possibly be—five-year parliamentary terms. They have produced a five-year agreement on the back of which they say that all future Parliaments should be five years rather than the four years that people believe to be reasonable. They have gone to the maximum in that regard, but apparently five years is too long for a business agreement between the Post Office and Royal Mail. They say that would be wrong and undue—apparently it is too long term—but I think it entirely proper that there should be a long-term agreement.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that as postmasters and postmistresses retire and opportunities become available for people to take on public post offices, a 10-year, rather than a three-year, agreement would make that more attractive? If he were considering taking over such a business, would a 10-year agreement give him some confidence in the future?

[Mark Durkan]

I fully accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. The proposed agreement would make a difference not just for the individual business people who make a commitment to individual post offices, but collectively for the network and for those who will have responsibility for the broader Post Office enterprise in future. It is meant to give a period of confidence and space, to reduce the unknowns and to give at least some stability and reliability regarding some of the knowns in that context. It would not solve all the other problems—and there are many other issues and challenges—but it would at least give people some measure of assurance.