Postal Services Bill

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Lords Chamber

Where will delay leave the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses of this country, many of whom are already in a perilous state? If there are such difficulties for the Post Office, how will they be eradicated by legislation without a clear and firm date? I ask the Government to accept the insertion of an appropriate date by which the sale should be completed, because to do anything else would be damaging to Royal Mail. Royal Mail management seems to believe that a 2012 date is acceptable. Why does the Minister not believe that? I am sure that she will reflect on the strength of the presentation I have put before her. I await her response with significant interest. I urge the House to support the amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

My Lords, what a remarkable performance. I enjoyed the 14-minute speech by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, for a number of reasons, but first, I join him in paying tribute to Richard Hooper and say what a remarkable job he has done for Royal Mail. We were all thrilled when he was present at the Oscar ceremony when his son Tom won the best director award, one of the many awards for “The King’s Speech”.

The noble Lord made a remarkable presentation arguing in favour of a sunset clause when, thanks to the noble Lord when he was in Government, we are still awaiting sunrise. The great period of massive uncertainty that he described is wholly as a result of the previous Government’s inability to take the previous Bill through the other place after we had spent many hours improving it. I also heard him say that we must not have the Royal Mail engaging in some strange limbo-land. All I will say is that that is exactly what we had. The great thing now is that we have a Government determined to realise the ambitions of all those of us who care deeply about the Royal Mail and make it a great success. I share the noble Lord’s four principles, but I say to him that when he makes the first principle “timely”, I wish that he might have expressed some regret about the fact that the previous Bill did not proceed any further when it should have done. Of course he is right to say that we have to look for value for money, clarity and a secure footing. The great thing I have learnt from that remarkable lady, Moya Greene, is that she is determined to make Royal Mail the most respected institution in the UK. That is something she achieved with Canada Post, and I am a great admirer. Please, whatever the arguments for or against sunset clauses, let us have sunrise, let us get on with it.

[Lord Hoyle]

I was not going to rise, but I am going to rise and there may be other occasions when I rise when we hear the eloquence of the noble Lord opposite. I notice that he did not reply to the argument being put forward here about the uncertainty that would rest with Royal Mail unless there is a conclusion date. The question that was being asked was, “Are they going to give it away?”. I know that the Minister is a more reasonable person, and I expect that she will deal with the arguments rather than going round the periphery and talking about what might or might not have been. The pair of us had a little discussion. We did not always agree, although on other subjects in the past we have agreed, so we have something in common, but not on this. I hope the noble Lord will not rise again unless he is going to deal with the arguments in a constructive way and say why we should not have it. The reason is that we cannot allow uncertainty to continue. That will happen. How can management plan ahead if it has to keep asking itself: When will we be selling it off? How will we sell it off? Where are we going to go? No planning can take place in such circumstances. It not only affects the Royal Mail; it affects the Post Office network as well. We need to know what the Government are thinking. They have said, and I completely agree with them, that it will not be a giveaway. They are trying to get the right price with the right company that will serve the interest. I, of course, am totally against that, as is known. The point is that we are where we are in discussing this Bill, and it is reasonable to put a limit on this. After all, we are only at the beginning of 2011 and we are talking about the end of 2012. What is wrong with that? I do hope that we get a more constructive reply from the Minister.