Nia Griffith
Main Page: Nia Griffith (Labour - Llanelli)Postal Services Bill
Nia Griffith Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Tom Blenkinsop
There is also the assumption that the Royal Mail will stay at its current size and not contract wholesale to a more commercially viable size in urban areas, and an assumption that it will remain as one national system and not fracture into regional systems with further purchases and sales. It depends who the buyer is, and we have no guarantee on that either.
The importance of the inter-business agreement is demonstrated by the figure from the National Federation of SubPostmasters that income from transactions carried out in post offices on behalf of the Royal Mail accounts for a third of Post Office Ltd’s income—£343 million in 2009-10—and makes up a third of sub-postmasters’ pay and income. It is clear that if the agreement, which has almost four years left to run, is not retained and carried over, more local sub-postmasters will conclude that the game is up and hand in their keys. The arrangements under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 are likely to change, and the terms and conditions for sub-postmasters may change substantially. If I was a sub-postmaster in a rural area and wanted my pension or redundancy, I would see this as a dodgy area.
It may be easy for Ministers to ignore such arguments and say that there are always people who are willing to provide post office services, but from my constituency experience, that is far from the truth. When a local urban post office in Coulby Newham closed recently, the response to the advertisement of the new business opportunity was negligible. Luckily, we were able, in partnership with the regional offices of Post Office Ltd to find a business man, Mr Patel, who was willing to take the risk of opening a new outlet in Coulby Newham, but I stress that that was with the benefit of the inter-business agreement. Without it, I do not believe that he would have taken the plunge.
Any changes to Royal Mail and its relationship with Post Office Ltd that adversely impact on the network will unquestionably risk further widespread post office closures. If the Government do not heed that warning, the public and my constituents will know who to blame. Royal Mail is a great example of how the market does not solve everything. It simply does not make economic or business sense for a company to set up to provide a postal service in rural areas. That is why we need Royal Mail, why we have the IBA, and why it must remain.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
To most people in this country, the Royal Mail and the Post Office are synonymous. To them, the matching colours of the Royal Mail vans and the oval sign indicating the presence of a post office are symbolic of an inextricable link between the two. They are the two arms of one and the same service. The post office is the collection or access point—the place where people take the parcel that they want to post or the letter that they want to register—and the Royal Mail van that does the country rounds, or the postman or woman wearing the badge with the red and yellow insignia on it, provides the delivery service.
Lorely Burt
My understanding is that the inter-business agreement will come into place before any agreement is signed between Royal Mail and whoever takes over.
Nia Griffith
As I understand it, there is an existing IBA. The question is: what is the timetable for the privatisation of the Royal Mail? How much of the existing IBA will be left? If we are arguing that an existing IBA can be carried over, surely an existing IBA of a different length could also be carried over. Although we currently have one that is worth probably a couple of years at most, by the time the privatisation procedure has gone through, there could be a new and different IBA. Indeed, there could be a 10-year IBA. We have already heard from the Minister that it is possible to have all sorts of businesses entering into agreements. We know that there are 10-year rail franchises, for example. There are all sorts of different takeover bids—when companies take over other companies, they have all sorts of contractors working for them—so there can clearly also be a takeover of an inter-business agreement. We are asking the Minister for a guarantee that it will be a 10-year agreement. What we are asking for is not rocket science; it is something that I am sure he will want to do. Indeed, if we can be persuasive enough, I am sure that he might even consider it, but we shall see.
If that can be done and a privatised Royal Mail can be expected to honour the existing agreement, what has the Minister done to explore the option of putting in place a longer-lasting inter-business agreement, such as a 10-year agreement? Perhaps he will be able to tell us later what he has done. What will he do to put that in place before privatising the Royal Mail? Has he looked at examples of business takeovers where the buyer has taken over the existing commitments of the company that it has acquired? Simply telling the Committee and now the House that it cannot be done, without even exploring the options, suggests a fundamental unwillingness to take every possible step to secure the future of the post office network.
The Minister seems to think that it would be good enough to rely on the good will of those concerned. Indeed, he tried to assure the Committee by saying:
“I refer the Committee to what the chief executive of Royal Mail, Moya Greene, and Donald Brydon, the chairman, said. Moya Greene said it was unthinkable that there would not be a long-term relationship between Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. Donald Brydon said that he wanted to have the longest possible legally permissible agreement”.––[Official Report, Postal Services Public Bill Committee, 11 November 2010; c. 121-22, Q244.]
However, what has the Minister done to turn that good will into practical action? Has he had talks with the chief executive and chairman of Royal Mail about securing a longer inter-business agreement between Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd before privatisation? What mechanisms has he explored for doing that? It also has to be said that Moya Greene may not be there for ever. What happens if we have a new chief executive or chairman? I have every belief in the sincerity of their words, but we all know that words are not enough. What we need in business are agreements in writing, so that we know what we are talking about.
The Minister also said that consideration had not been given to the matter before. No, it has not, quite simply because when we were in government, we always intended to keep Royal Mail in majority public ownership, so it would not have been separated from the post office network in the way that it will be if the Government privatise it. Therefore, there was simply no need to consider the future of the IBA in that way.
The National Federation of SubPostmasters is clear that it needs a 10-year IBA as an absolute minimum. That will be fundamental to providing security, so that business will be viable for the 97% of post offices that are owned by a sub-postmaster or sub-postmistress. They are the people who have taken on post offices, investing considerable amounts of their own money to set them up at a time when the inter-business agreement between Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd was taken for granted. They would never have dreamt that post offices could face losing Royal Mail business and, with it, the money that accounts for a third of their revenue.
Sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses will have welcomed the Government announcement to continue the subsidy of the post office network. Indeed, they may be hoping to benefit from some of the money that is being put aside for the refurbishment of post offices. However, they will also be scrutinising the BIS document “Securing the Future of the Post Office in the Digital Age” to see whether they can find anything that guarantees more Government business to post offices, when we have PayPoint challenging the Post Office for the Department for Work and Pensions contract for benefit checks. Sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses will also be looking carefully to see whether there are any strategies for channelling new types of business through the Post Office, now that the Government have abandoned Labour’s plans for a people’s bank at the Post Office—yet another Lib-Dem manifesto promise broken.
Most of all, however, sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses will be worried about the future of the IBA, because they know how much the future viability of their business depends on their continuing to provide services for Royal Mail. Indeed, the IBA covers more than just the counter services. As the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) pointed out, it deals with sorting facilities in shared premises in some areas. Specific guarantees that business with the Royal Mail will continue are wanted. If someone has invested considerable amounts of money in a business that included Royal Mail services, they would be concerned about whether they could sell their business as a going concern when they decided to retire or move on. They would be very worried about the price they might get if there were no IBA with the Royal Mail, and there would be a real problem in attracting new entrants.
Even without considering the potential loss of the IBA, the Rural Shops Alliance, in the winter edition of its journal Rural Retailer, expresses this view of Government plans to convert post offices to the Post Office local model:
“The logic of this is obvious, but it will involve a reduction in product ranges, longer PO opening hours and a reduction in income—not a model that will encourage subpostmasters to remain as part of the network. It is great that the Government is promising a no closure programme—it cannot however promise that it will be financially worthwhile for anybody to provide PO services.”
That is the case even without considering the catastrophic effect that the loss of the IBA would have on the prospects of post offices and the chances of attracting new entrants.
George Thomson of the National Federation of SubPostmasters told us that there are currently 900 vacancies where Post Office Ltd is struggling to find someone to take on a local post office. It is no good dismissing this as just the regular turnover. I know for a fact from my own constituency—I am sure that other hon. Members do, too—just how long some of those vacancies have been there and how depressing it is for those local communities without their post offices, with some pensioners having to face very awkward and time-consuming bus journeys to access their pensions.
With the prospect that the Post Office could lose the IBA, how on earth is Post Office Ltd going to attract new entrants? Why would anybody want to undertake the not inconsiderable task of establishing themselves as a sub-postmaster, with all the training and investment involved, with the prospect of the Post Office losing the IBA hanging over them?
Consumer Focus has also raised concerns about the impact of the loss of the IBA. It said in written evidence to the Public Bill Committee that
“following privatisation of Royal Mail, subsequent contracts would require a competitive tender process with no guarantee that Post Office Ltd would retain this contract”.
It continued by pointing out that
“for the foreseeable future, the loss of the mail’s contract, even on a partial basis, would significantly undermine the integrity of the post office network. Even if the Royal Mail continued to use the PO in rural areas only, the ability of the network to cross-subsidise from its profitable urban branches would be lost. The future of many post offices, particularly the 6,515 post offices in rural areas, would therefore be in doubt. This would not only threaten access to mail services, but also to the range of services of economic and social interest available through the PO network.”
That is the viewpoint of Consumer Focus, and I am sure we would all agree that it should be listened to.
Many hon. Members have made some good and useful points today. My hon. Friends the Members for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) and for Blaydon (Mr Anderson), who both have an excellent track record in standing up for post offices, each made a vigorous and impassioned defence of the post office network.
The hon. Member for Northampton South mentioned the importance of the social role of the Post Office—how people get help from it and how community networking and social work take place. He also mentioned that it is not only older citizens, but young mums who can benefit from the community and help that can be found through the post office. The hon. Gentleman said, “Woe betide any elected Member who ignores the importance of the local post office to the fabric of the community.” He also mentioned the role of the additional 900 post offices that act as mail sorting areas and the problem of post office vacancies and the difficulty of finding new entrants to take on post offices.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) reminded us that there are other countries where the Post Office is protected in law. The hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) raised the issue of the need for regulatory reform—something on which we would all agree. The hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) said that everything simply cannot be left to warm words. He pointed out that we simply do not know how long the current managers will remain in their posts. He also drew attention to the staggering range of products and services that are now available through supermarkets, which would not have been dreamt of only a few years ago.
Mr Davey
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) for sparking the debate, and particularly for the way in which he introduced it, in his unique style. I thank him for his practical approach to the issue, and for his support for the mutualisation and employee share ownership provisions. I hope I shall be able to reassure him that new clause 2 is not needed, and that our policies for the Post Office will ensure that some of the more scaremongering predictions that we have heard will not come to fruition.
Members who have spoken in support of the new clause have expressed the fear, which has been debated at length in Committee and in other forums, that taking Post Office Ltd out of the Royal Mail Group of companies will put the commercial relationship between Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd at risk, and thence pose a risk to the post office network. I share my hon. Friend’s laudable interest in ensuring that a strong commercial relationship is maintained between Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. However, the approach taken in this new clause, of legislating a contract of a certain length, is not the way to achieve our shared objective.
In the evidence given to the Public Bill Committee, we heard strong backing for the separation of Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. These are different businesses, which will benefit from focusing on the different challenges they face. It is worth keeping in mind that postal services account for only about a third of Post Office total revenue, as post offices undertake many other activities. Evidence to the Committee from Richard Hooper—the last Government commissioned him to report on Royal Mail, and this Government asked him to refresh his report—and from Consumer Focus and Postcomm all supported the separation of ownership of the two businesses. I was grateful for the support for this from my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso).
Let me reassure Members, however, that the separation of Post Office Ltd and Royal Mail will not lead to the dangers for the post office network that people have talked about. Operationally, these companies are reliant on one another. Post offices carried out more than 3 billion transactions for Royal Mail in 2009. They will continue to be partners, because there will remain an overwhelming commercial imperative for the two businesses to work together.
Let me expand on that a little further. In evidence to the Bill Committee, the chief executive of Royal Mail, Moya Greene, called the post office network
“the best and strongest network in the country, by any yardstick”––[Official Report, Postal Services Public Bill Committee, 9 November 2010; c. 18, Q42.]
Yesterday, she reaffirmed her commitment to that relationship, saying:
“There is already a very strong and enduring commercial relationship between the Post Office and Royal Mail. It is clearly in the interests of us all that this strong relationship is maintained in the future. We are committed to securing as long an agreement with the Post Office as we are legally able to.”
That confirms what Donald Brydon, the Royal Mail chairman, said in his evidence to the Committee. These are very strong pledges, and both Moya Greene and Donald Brydon make them not for sentimental reasons, but because they are business people and they know this relationship makes commercial sense.
Nia Griffith
If this makes such good commercial sense, what is the problem with putting it in the Bill? Royal Mail will still be an attractive proposition to any prospective purchaser.
Mr Davey
I will, of course, address that in detail, if the hon. Lady will let me. However, I first want to stress that it is the commercial incentive in the relationship that is so important. The Labour party forgets that commercial rationale is what makes people work together and what makes partnerships successful, not regulation.
I invite Members to consider the counterfactual of why Royal Mail would end its relationship with the post office network. Many of us fought the previous Government’s post office closure programmes precisely because the public value their local post offices so highly and see them as the natural place for high-quality postal services. As I asked on Second Reading, why would Royal Mail walk away from the Post Office, leaving a vacuum which its competitors would willingly fill? That would be commercial nonsense, and it will not do it.
The new clause would put the contract between Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd on a statutory basis, requiring a minimum duration to the contract of 10 years. Let me explain why I am opposed to this suggestion. I do not believe that legislation is appropriate place for the commercially sensitive terms of a relationship between two independent businesses to be settled. I am unaware of any statutory precedent for the Government requiring particular commercial terms between two independent businesses. When we debated this in Committee, I appealed to Committee members to tell me whether they could find such a precedent. None has appeared, and for good reason. These negotiations are best left to the businesses themselves, who know far better than we in this House their customers, the markets they serve, the products and the services they require of one another.
Mr Davey
The hon. Gentleman is a new Member of the House and he might know that there are various protocols on publishing legal advice.
Our policies on post offices will ensure that people will continue to see their local post office as the natural and convenient place to access Royal Mail products, and Royal Mail’s management continues to see the Post Office as its retail partner of choice. It is by attracting customers for all types of services that the Post Office will ensure its future success. With this Government’s funding and support, as laid out in our policy document, which sets out a whole range of ideas for new Government services, we will be able to achieve those objectives.
The new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester is well intentioned and I have always been impressed by how he, the voice of Colchester, campaigns for his constituents, not least for important services such as local post offices. I hope that I have reassured him that his new clause is not needed to support our precious post office network.
Nia Griffith
It still is not at all clear what the Minister is giving away. We have absolutely no idea what agreement he is planning and he has given absolutely no indication that he has had any talks with Royal Mail. He is talking about some sort of negotiation that might take place, but he is not telling us why he cannot explain what the legal problem is. We are not the slightest bit convinced, so will he explain exactly what he is doing to secure the Royal Mail business that provides a third of the post office network’s income? No organisation can survive without a third of its income, so what is he doing to ensure that it does not lose it?
Mr Davey
The hon. Lady cannot have been listening. What I have said today is absolutely clear: a commitment has been made to the Committee on which she served by the chairman and the chief executive of Royal Mail that they will refresh the IBA or have a new one before the separation. I am saying that the Government, as the shareholder, will make that happen, and she ought to welcome that.
Bob Russell
When we read Hansard tomorrow, we shall see that there was at least one commitment—if not more—in the Minister’s response. Whatever the outcome of the vote, the fact that we have held the debate is worth while.
To be told four hours into the debate that my new clause may not be lawful was a little strong. I am pretty sure that, if the proposal were not lawful, somebody, somewhere, would have drawn it to my attention, if not when I tabled it, certainly in the few weeks since the Christmas and new year period. When I am told that there could be a serious legal challenge, all I can say is that nobody has challenged me as to the legality or otherwise of new clause 2.
Although I am grateful for all the contributions to the debate, I am disappointed. Had this been a boxing tournament, the ref would have ended the bout at least two hours ago. If this were an Oxford Union debate, the vote in favour of new clause 2 would have been overwhelming, because the case against the new clause is not very strong. It may be that all the Members who oppose new clause 2 are not present, and only the minority who support it have come to the Chamber to speak, but I am grateful to Members on both sides of the House. I think that we all agree that our sub-post office network is a vital part of our communities. Whether it is sustainable communities or localism, all Governments come up with such ideas and then promptly do things that do not appear to be community oriented.
It is on record that I am opposed to the privatisation of Royal Mail, but I accept that it will happen, so this is a question of what is best. I genuinely feel that new clause 2 is a way of taking things forward.
It is less than nine months since the utopian era of 13 years of new Labour came to an end; of course, it was a golden era for Royal Mail and the Post Office, so although I welcome the support that has been given we need to put it in historical context. The closures under the previous Government were the greatest of any time in the history of the Post Office and Royal Mail. I believe that the coalition Government have proposals—
Nia Griffith
The hon. Gentleman needs to remember that when we debated how to support the post office network and how to put in the extra subsidy that enabled us to keep open 11,900 post offices, the Minister of State, Department for International Development, who was then the shadow Minister speaking for the official Opposition, made it absolutely clear that the Conservative party would not have put in the amount of money that we were prepared to put in. Of course, the Liberal Democrats were not then promising anything because they never thought that they would have to deliver.
Bob Russell
I provided the hon. Lady with an opportunity to apologise for Labour’s mistakes, but an apology was not forthcoming.
I am disappointed that the Minister has not accepted new clause 2. After all, over Christmas, the Government accepted another of my proposals—that a picture of the Queen’s head must remain on stamps—although if we reach that amendment later on, it refers only to Her Majesty, and we need to tighten up the wording because the monarch may not always be female. I wish to press new clause 2 to a Division.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.