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Mr. Gordon McMaster (Paisley, South): My hon. Friend is absolutely correct about the effect of privatisation on sub-post offices and about the role that they play in the community. Does he agree that those sub-post offices are the only contact for many elderly and disabled people with the wider community, and nowhere more so than the constituency of the President of the Board of Trade--Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, which is a collection of small villages?
Mr. Connarty: That point is very well made. The public will certainly be coming for the President of the Board of Trade, not to wish him well in his defence of privatisation, but to wish him out of their lives. They will bring in someone else who represents their views. It is interesting that this is another example of Conservatives saying one thing and doing another. What the previous President of the Board of Trade said about privatisation rings as false as when he used to tell his creditors that the cheque was in the post.
Reference was also made to previous debates about Crown office closures. Crown post offices are very important to people in towns, and it is not just a question of their symbolism as large buildings. For many people, the Crown office is the most convenient place to do their business. There is no doubt that the number of campaigns against the closure of Crown offices up and down the country were not spurred on by counter staff or by the CWU membership. I have been in cities--some of which are represented by Conservative Members--where petitions of 12,000 people were collected to try to stop the closure of a Crown post office because those people saw it as the most convenient place to do their business.
Mr. Thomas McAvoy (Glasgow, Rutherglen):
On the subject of Crown post offices, is my hon. Friend aware of the proposal made by Post Office Counters Ltd. to close Cambuslang Crown post office and make it into an agency post office, despite community protests? That Crown post office operates from premises leased to it by Lanarkshire county council for 999 years as long as it is used for
Mr. Connarty:
The point is well made. That example in Cambuslang is repeated throughout the length of breadth of Britain. It is interesting to consider the numbers. There were 1,500 Crown offices in 1989 and there are now only 700.
It is not just Labour Members who oppose the closure of Crown offices. The right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke) and the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess), no less, oppose the closure of Crown post offices in their constituencies. The hon. Member for Basildon is the original Essex man. One would probably call him the temporary Member for Basildon because, like many others, he is on his way out. The hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir A. Haselhurst) also opposes the closure of Crown post offices.
There has been a report about what happens when Crown post offices are lost and replaced with franchise offices. The latest document which has been leaked to Members of Parliament shows that franchise offices make four times as many errors as Crown offices. I have a simple piece of advice for my Front-Bench team. I do not make policy, but I am not afraid to give advice.We should commit ourselves to cease Crown office closures immediately we come to office, before we do anything else, and then conduct a nationwide review of the network of post offices. I believe that we would find serious deficiencies.
Some post offices have gone into the backs of shops. Conservative Members do not seem to be concerned about people who have a marginal income going to collect it by transfer payment at the back of a supermarket, perhaps with a couple of kids, and then coming out and buying things that they did not intend to buy, are not in the family budget and they do not and cannot normally afford. That is the pattern that is beginning to emerge. People are not spending in a planned way because many other things are demanded of them. Conservative Members should take heed of that.
We are not talking just about whether something makes sense commercially and whether people make a profit.We are talking about whether it makes sense socially. Does it make sense for the type of fabric of society, not just the type of commercial enterprise that we want to see? That is the difference between Conservative Members and Labour Members. We believe that we should be concerned about the social results of the things that we do, not just the results in terms of profit and share price. We care for the many. They care for the few, and everyone knows it. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) wish to intervene?
Mr. Anthony Coombs:
I will allow the hon. Gentleman to finish.
Mr. Connarty:
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I will be on my feet for a few minutes yet.
Stamp charges are likely to rise. The increase in postage will damage some of the commercial interests that Conservative Members wish to see developed for post
offices. We are told that the post offices are successful and have operated for 19 years without subsidy. We have been told about all their achievements.
The Mail Order Traders Association, the Direct Marketing Association, the Mail Users Association and the Periodical Publishers Association have taken out an advert in The House Magazine. I hope that Conservative Members will take the trouble to read it. In case they do not, I will read some of it into Hansard for their benefit. It says:
if postal stamp charges rise. It says that
if postal stamp charges rise. It says that
to save on stamp charges, if they rise. It says that there has been a
if postal stamp charges rise. It refers to
if postal stamp charges rise--and a
The President of the Board of Trade tells us that, despite the increase in charges, everything has grown, but the associations say that they are likely to become unprofitable if they have to pay the extra stamp charges on mail. The advert says simply, "Say no to postage price increases." That advert was paid for by the mail users associations.
Let Conservative Members listen to someone if they will not listen to us.
Another thing that is happening in Royal Mail is that delivery time agreements are being eroded. The Department of Trade and Industry has been behind encouraging that, just as it was behind setting targets for the closure of Crown post offices--as was revealed by a leaked memo during the last campaign.
The standard is supposed to be that all first-class mail is delivered by 9.30 am. The pressure is on to earn the money that will be taken away in the external financing limit by pushing postmen out with more and more mail in their sack. That will mean that people will sometimes not receive their first delivery of mail until 11 am, with a peripheral delivery of the last bits of mail after that time.
In London, there is an agreement that 60 per cent.of the mail goes out in the first delivery and 40 per cent. goes out in the second. In Scotland recently there was an industrial dispute caused by the actions of the management in trying to impose new rotas, under which 90 or 80 per cent. of the mail went out in the first delivery. We find people making deliveries at 11 o'clock. When we ask whether it is their first or second delivery, they say that it is their first delivery. It is the first delivery. The Government have a responsibility, before they talk about privatisation, to make sure that consumers get the standard of service that they thought that the Government were guaranteeing them through regulation.
Finally, I come to Professor Baumol's analysis of handicraft industries. I was an economics student when he was considered to be extremely right wing in the
economic world. He recently gave a lecture on the health service but referred to other industries that come into the same category--industries delivered by the hand of a human being at the point of consumption. He named mail delivery as one of those and said that, as with health, we cannot get productivity by cutting the number of bodies doing the job. That leads to a loss of quality, not better productivity. There is a difference. The Government's pressure will bring about a loss of quality. It has already been said by the new chief executive of the Post Office that the stupid remark of the Prime Minister--I do not think that the Prime Minister had thought about it before opening his mouth, and forgot to put his brain in gear--has caused a great deal of concern in the industry and problems for its investment in the future.
"Direct mail alone generates £13 billion worth of business: Substantial economic decline"--
"Over 50,000 jobs depend on the Mailing Industry: 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. of jobs could go"--
"Most advertisers plan to increase print budgets: Substantial switch to electronic media"--
"60 per cent. growth in Direct Mail over 5 years:
Lost opportunity for an expanding industry"--
"Financial Mail, the largest single sector: Severely damaged"--
"30 per cent. growth in magazine subscriptions over 5 years".
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