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Mr. Michael J. Martin (Glasgow, Springburn): Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the absence of documents is a common complaint in Standing Committees? It is important to ensure that the record of the previous sittings is available to hon. Members serving on those Committees. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that hon. Members often raise points of order because the Hansard for the previous Tuesday or Thursday is not available?
Mr. Channon: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right. It is some years since I raised a point of order in a Standing Committee, and I hope that opportunity will not arise again for quite a while.
I was the Minister under whose regime and benevolent rule the stationery office became a trading agency, to which the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland referred with pleasure.
We have seen in Hansard the letter from Madam Speaker containing 12 paragraphs of conditions that she thinks are necessary before the House could agree to a privatisation scheme. It is no secret that the matter was debated in the Commission, nor is it any secret that the matter was debated in the Finance and Services Select Committee--the relevant papers are published. I recall no resistance to the suggestion that the Minister should make a statement. I recall no resistance to the suggestion that there should be a debate. The very fact of a debate implies that, as a possible result of it, there might be a vote. Such a vote could easily be arranged in the future.
All I want to ask is whether my right hon. Friend can repeat the assurance he gave to the House on a previous occasion. Can he repeat that he will not proceed with the privatisation of the stationery office unless he can conscientiously convince the House that the 12 points of
reservation that the Speaker made in her letter will be met in full? My right hon. Friend has already given us that undertaking, but I think that he must give it again to the House tonight. The House can then come to a fair judgment about the future. If those assurances cannot be given, I am sure that the House will not wish to proceed with the privatisation. If my right hon. Friend gives that assurance, I for one will be happy, at least at this stage, to look at the proposal with an open mind and to consider the evidence. I would be happy to give way to my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Freeman:
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I repeat the assurance that I have already given on that point. Because of the importance of HMSO to parliamentary business, it is obvious and self-evident that Parliament must be satisfied. I cannot dictate Parliament's wish or conclusions on the matter, and therefore it cannot proceed unless Parliament is satisfied.
Mr. Channon:
For me, at least, that goes far enough for me to say that, at this stage, I am content to proceed further and see how the negotiations go. The Minister said that Parliament's wishes must be paramount, and that must be the aim of all of us, whether we are in favour or against privatisation in principle.
Mr. John Garrett (Norwich, South):
Her Majesty's Stationery Office employs 2,800 workers, of whom 900 are in my constituency at the Norwich headquarters of HMSO. Therefore mine is a primarily constituency interest, although I also have a public service interest, as we all do.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster) said, HMSO was set up in 1786 to stamp out corruption in public service purchasing. It is profitable, highly successful and has declared a surplus since 1980. It is in the middle of a three-year plan. As a result of being in the public sector it has the advantage of being able to use the purchasing power of the public sector to hold down prices. It also enjoys large economies of scale, and can spread its purchasing across a range of suppliers. Those advantages have served the Government well.
One essential is that HMSO is not broken up, on or after privatisation. The Minister frequently says that he will not split its printing from its publishing activities. The right hon. Gentleman has not hitherto realised that one third of HMSO's business is in office equipment and office supplies. If those businesses were sold off--that would be a strong temptation to a private contractor-- much of the overhead of the total organisation would have to be spread over printing, print buying and publishing. The loss of one third of the business would make HMSO non-viable. We fear that a major institution would buy HMSO as a whole and then, relatively quickly, resell the profitable parts and collapse the rest of it.
What guarantees of employment will be extracted from a purchaser? Every other privatisation has been accompanied by massive job losses. That is the burning question in Norwich, which has lost 2,500 jobs directly, and probably as many again indirectly in the past few years. It cannot withstand massive new redundancies. I believe that guarantees of employment in the tender from potential private purchasers are essential.
The Government tell us that the TUPE regulations will apply to the workers at HMSO, but those regulations specifically state that workers' terms and conditions may be changed for technological, organisational or economic reasons. HMSO operates on the leading edge of a number of technologies, and is therefore regularly reorganised. The protection afforded by the TUPE regulations may therefore be minimal. Equally, those regulations do not apply to transfers via change of share ownership. We understand that the current preferred route for a sale is to a financial institution, which may therefore not comply with current terms and conditions. Even the Government acknowledge that TUPE regulations provide protection only at the point of sale. If HMSO were to be broken up later, the businesses which were sold on would also not benefit from TUPE. I am strongly under the impression that the TUPE conditions last for three months and would not apply any longer to HMSO.
When I asked the Minister at the time of his statement what steps he would take to guarantee security on privatisation, he was unable to answer. HMSO is a security printer--I am well aware that there are other such printers--which produces in-confidence Government and parliamentary papers, passports, benefit books and other products where security matters, and which are subject to potential fraud. There has never been a leak from HMSO. What private sector company would offer such a guarantee when making a tender to take over HMSO?
HMSO already carries out work for the French Department of Employment and the German Post Office. Why could it not spread into the European public sector markets and British non-Government markets while being retained as a public sector body? HMSO already operates in private markets, and most of its work has already been exposed to market testing. Virtually every test has been won in-house because of the efficiency of HMSO. In fact, 75 per cent. of its goods and services are already purchased from the private sector.
HMSO has made the profit required of it while publishing important but limited-interest publications, which the private sector would be unlikely to publish because of the lack of profit in particular publications. Open government requires a state publisher prepared to publish limited-interest publications without the constraint of profit.
The Minister referred to the constraint on the HMSO of the public sector borrowing requirement, but HMSO has made no call on borrowing in the past 15 years.
In addition to employment and commercial considerations, there are, of course, important parliamentary considerations, which have been the subject of most of the speeches so far. How can a private contractor have the parliamentary experience of HMSO? What will happen if a private contractor fails to provide Parliament with the publications that it needs to do its work? If a contract replaces the present arrangements, all that Parliament can do is invoke a penalty clause. What good is that? Parliament would meanwhile grind to a halt. When will a detailed statement be made on safeguarding Parliament's interests in the cause of privatisation? Will they be made clear in the tender document? Who will be responsible if a private stationery office fails to provide the service that we need? Do the Government propose to hold a golden share in the privatised HMSO, so that at least they have some arm on it?
I have some other questions on parliamentary matters. Will the privatised stationery office be the ultimate owner of current and future stocks of Government and parliamentary publications, and of the associated electronic archive? If so, what would the situation be if the company went bankrupt or were taken into foreign ownership?
A privatised stationery office will naturally wish, in the interests of its shareholders, to extract maximum commercial value from official documents and data. How does that fit in with Government policies on public access to official information, for example, the trend to put more and more Government documents on the Internet?
The House is making an effort to bring down the sale price of Hansard and other parliamentary documents-- a policy which will benefit Government Departments as purchasers of those documents. Do the Government support that policy? Are they making a similar effort to hold down the sale price of their documents? A Government-funded subsidy is currently paid to enable public libraries to purchase all official publications at a substantial discount. Can we take it that subsidy is not affected by the proposed privatisation of HMSO?
The Minister made a great deal of the fact that House officials recently completed negotiations of a new supply and service agreement, or SSA, with HMSO which is intended to come into effect on 1 January 1996. Are Ministers using that SSA, or related information on the House's financial arrangements with HMSO, for the purpose of discussions with potential purchasers? In other words, will the SSA be built into discussions with potential purchasers? Will the south London press--with its access to Parliament and its unique experience--continue to operate under guarantee? Because of parliamentary business, HMSO's costs are relatively high and its return from sales relatively low. This bodes ill for its survival.
I do not find the Chancellor of the Duchy's answers to the Speaker's letter sufficiently satisfying on the main points. The Speaker raised the matter of the parliamentary press in south London, and stated that there was concern that somebody who took it over
The Speaker referred to the complexity of the House's documents and the procedural rules which underpin them. She said:
8.12 pm
"would be tempted to experiment with cheaper methods for providing the service"
at a risk to the service to Parliament.
"HMSO staff and management acquire experience and knowledge of those complexities as they progress from job to job in the organisation; and they are brought up in the tradition that in all circumstances the requirements of Parliament are paramount."
It is unlikely that a private contractor would see the interests of Parliament as paramount, because it is an intangible requirement and is very difficult to put into a contractual document.
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