Postal Services in Scotland after 2014

Debate between Jo Swinson and John Robertson

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Hood, and I congratulate my neighbour across the Clyde, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) on securing the debate.

I know what privatisation is all about. I was a member of the General Post Office. That became the Post Office, which was then split up into the Post Office and British Telecom, which I became an engineer in. Of course, the Post Office has now been split up into Royal Mail and the Post Office.

More than 250,000 people were working for BT when it was privatised in the 1980s. I am not sure of the exact figure these days, but it is around the 90,000 mark. That gives some idea of what has happened to a privatised industry over the years. Some of those job losses would have occurred anyway because of new technology, but the same cannot be said for the Post Office, and Royal Mail and post offices have, sadly, seen staff numbers go down. Many hon. Members, particularly from the separatist party, have mentioned the CWU. I was a member of the CWU. I had the honour of being a member of that union back in the days when it was the POEU, the Post Office Engineering Union, and then the NCU, the National Communications Union, and a very good union it was too. Then I became a member of Connect, which was for the management side of British Telecom, and from there I became a Member of Parliament.

What could happen to the Post Office in the years ahead I do not want to think about. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West is right to say that the Liberal Democrats have taken on the role of head executioner and are being used yet again for legislation that is not what the country would vote for if it was given a vote on this issue. The Minister is another of my constituency neighbours; her constituency is to the north of mine. I look forward to it coming back to Labour at the next election and having a Labour neighbour next time round. Her party is doing its best to ensure that she is not re-elected.

We have seen already the cherry-picking that goes on in the post office industry. That worries me a great deal. As the Post Office is sold off, we have seen what services the Scottish Government are using. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar) mentioned this. DHL delivered 6,162 items, costing £220,047, in 2009-10 alone. FedEx—it is important that we mention all these things—delivered 1,566 items, costing £49,514. An £8 million contract was given to TNT in 2009. The Scottish Government can say that they were adhering to the rules. I do not know that that is true. I am not saying that it is not true, but I do know that they cannot spout about how much they are doing to protect post offices and post office workers and at the same time undermine their jobs.

How does that compare with the present UK Government? They want to get rid of the Post Office. Hon. Members have said that the previous Government wanted to get rid of it too, but I say to them that it was Labour Back-Bench Members who stopped that privatisation or partial privatisation. It was not Liberals. It was not the SNP. It was not Conservatives. It was Back-Bench Labour MPs such as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West, who secured this debate, who spoke the loudest to try to stop that privatisation, and they did.

[Jo Swinson]

I just want to bring this clarity to the debate. Yet again, the hon. Gentleman has been talking about privatisation of the Post Office; I think that he means privatisation of Royal Mail.

[John Robertson]

No, I was talking about privatisation of the Post Office. Let us remember that the Post Office was split into Royal Mail and the Post Office. The next step of privatisation will involve the Post Office. The hon. Lady may be confused. Then again, I could be confused—that is always possible—but I do have some questions to ask her and I would like to know whether she has asked questions of the Scottish Government about exactly where we are in relation to privatisation of the Post Office. What will happen in Scotland in the event of privatisation? What about what is happening in 2014? Have the Government taken that into consideration, albeit that the bookies are giving odds of 1:9 on separation? We hope that we will not have that, but what are the implications for the free movement of post across the border?

Has the Minister asked the Scottish Government what they would do in relation to the free movement of post that has originated from south of the border or, for that matter, from Northern Ireland? What would the impact be on Scottish businesses in those circumstances? What planning have the Scottish Government done in relation to separating Royal Mail and the post offices in the event of a 2014 win on their part?

What would the impact be on jobs? We have heard that there are 12,500 jobs in the post office industry north of the border. We heard comments on this issue from the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir), whom I have a lot of time for. We have been on Select Committees together, and I respect him in a lot of ways. We do not always agree with each other—that is for sure—but he is usually worth listening to, although perhaps not so much today. I am trying to find out different bits and pieces of information and I have further questions for the Minister, but I do want to congratulate the hon. Member for Angus, because it would be churlish not to, on the early-day motion that he tabled, with the support of the CWU. It got cross-party support from 71 MPs. Funnily enough, there were no Tories, but he did get some Liberals, yet it is the same Liberal party that is helping to front up this future privatisation.