Postal Services Bill

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has been generous in accepting interventions. You talked in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) about successive Governments running down Royal Mail, which, to use your words, is a national treasure and national institution. Would you therefore agree that it will be your Government who could put the final nail in the coffin?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I have not talked about anything and I am not giving any commitments on anything, but Mr Russell might.

[Bob Russell]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Which Government did what when will be in the history books, so the hon. Gentleman will have his moment of glory and can say, “It was the dastardly Conservatives and Liberal Democrats wot done it.” That is how he would wish to present it, but I am not sure how history would record the demise of Royal Mail and the Post Office if Lord Mandelson’s proposals had been introduced, whatever they may have been.

I want to gaze into the future and imagine the agenda of the first board meeting of the newly privatised Royal Mail plc. After a report from the remuneration committee, perhaps the main item of business will be listed as the sponsorship of Sunderland football club. Afterwards, the agenda will no doubt turn to the issue of cost savings to be achieved. Like any other dynamic FTSE 100 company, which Royal Mail, I understand, will become, the board will want to see how it can reduce the cost of its contracts with suppliers. It happens every day in the world of commerce, notwithstanding the helpful contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). In that private world, the agreements that I propose in my new clause exist.

A principal supplier to Royal Mail is Post Office Ltd. The board will confer and I have no doubt it will quickly decide two things: first, the cost of the contractual relationship with Post Office Ltd is too expensive and, secondly, limiting the distribution of products and services to the post office network does not work in the best interests of Royal Mail. That is where the analogy with the supermarkets comes in, because the criticism is that they are all-powerful. They determine the contracts with suppliers, they set the price, and if suppliers do not like it, they know what they can do.