| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Bercow: I look forward with enthusiasm to hearing the arguments for new clause 6 for the first time,
as I did not have the inestimable privilege of being a member of the Standing Committee considering the Bill. I therefore did not hear my hon. Friend's eloquent advocacy in the first instance.
Mr. Page: My hon. Friend encourages me to go even further. I was merely going to touch briefly on the salient points, but I now feel constrained to go into the arguments in greater depth. The Minister may be starting to feel that he should have pushed a little harder on new clause 6, thus saving both of us time at the Dispatch Box.
The new clause is the same as that tabled in Committee. Again, it refers to our old friend "reasonable". I am sorry that the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Cotter) is not here, because he also has an enthusiasm for "reasonable". I had hoped that he would be here to reinforce my argument. I would have welcomed his support on such an issue, but we will have to plod on without him and make the best of it.
The Bill does not provide a clear definition of what might constitute a breach of duty, and thus an offence, by any person engaged in the business of a postal operator if, without reasonable excuse, he intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission. Similarly, a person other than a postal operator who, without reasonable excuse, intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission will also be guilty of an offence. A person opening a postal packet that is incorrectly delivered to him with the intention of acting to another's detriment and without reasonable excuse is also guilty of an offence. The purpose of the new clause is to draw out exactly how the Minister intends the various provisions to operate. Unless the new clause is accepted, the Bill remains unclear.
Sections 58 and 68 of the Post Office Act 1953 make it an offence, punishable by a fine and imprisonment for employees of the Post Office wilfully to delay or omit to deliver packets and messages, and for any person to solicit or endeavour to procure another person to commit such an offence. The problem is that the Bill offers no guidance as to what is a reasonable excuse. It is possible, if not probable, that the definition of that term will depend on decisions in court. Barristers and solicitors would no doubt welcome this source of employment. However, we should ensure that the legislation is as clear and transparent as possible so that people do not have to go to the courts for an interpretation. I believe that it is our duty to make the legislation as clear and transparent as possible. To push a measure through because it is convenient and easy is not the right option.
In Committee, we asked whether the wording of our new clause would permit trade unions in pursuit of industrial or political objectives to attempt to delay the transmission of postal packets. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) will be delighted to know that I suggested that the Minister would remember from his previous employment that the then Union of Post Office Workers attempted to stop the handling of mail to South Africa because it disagreed with the South African Government's politics at the time. Would that reason constitute a reasonable excuse?
The advantage of our new clause is that it would make requests from the police and Customs and Excise for delays to the transmission of postal packets or for the opening of them a sufficient defence for the offences listed in the Bill. The new clause would also offer a complete defence with regard to postal packets that contained goods in defiance of the law.
The Minister said in Committee that he would be prepared to consider the new clause. He has not done so--I am sure that that is an oversight, caused by his temporary illness. He has not been able to focus on the matter in the way in which he should have done. I mean no criticism in saying that. In the spirit of friendship, which is part of my natural wont as I go through life, I am fully prepared to admit that the drafting of the clause is not perfect. It could be honed and polished to a greater sophistication.
Mr. Bercow: I suppose that I ought to come clean--there is another reason for my concern about this matter. Fourteen years ago, as my hon. Friend is probably unaware, I was threatened with the non-distribution of my internal mail when I was a member of Lambeth borough council on the ground that the public service union concerned deprecated my political views. Does my hon. Friend agree that that should certainly not be a basis for non-distribution of mail?
Mr. Page: My hon. Friend is right that I had no idea that he was threatened by the draconian sanction of not receiving his mail through the internal postal system of the council on which he served. I am not sure whether the internal system was being run by the Post Office at the time, and whether there was a responsibility that would come under the aegis of the Bill.
As I was about to say before my hon. Friend's intervention, I am prepared to accept that the new clause could be better presented, and I would be delighted to hear that the Minister is prepared to undertake that work.
Mr. Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman is quite right--we debated the new clause in Committee, and I would have been delighted to come to Report with the required amendment, because we need one. Unfortunately, it has not proved possible to accept new clause 6 at this stage, partly because of the complex new issue of what defines "reasonable excuse". We have solved the problem that we set out to solve, which was that since the time of Queen Anne, under successive Post Office Acts it has been an offence wilfully to delay the mail. Wilful delay of the mail carried no excuse--there were no criteria as to whether that action could have proved reasonable. Therefore, an awful lot of problems occurred with wilful delay of the mail. Indeed, in the very incident to which the hon. Gentleman referred, when the Union of Post Office Workers took industrial action against the despicable regime of apartheid in South Africa, a judge at the time ruled that the wilful delay provision, which was originally put in place to deal with highwaymen, would be used as a reason why the union should not have the right to go on strike. I see that the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) agrees with that.
There were problems with the phrase "wilful delay", and the phrase "reasonable excuse" was believed to be a way around them. I apologise for not having the amendment ready at this stage. We will have to do it in another place, and I very much hope that it will meet all the concerns that have been raised.
New clause 6 does not solve the problem. As we discussed in Committee, it would create enormous problems if people could open mail if they reasonably suspected that a postal packet contained goods that may be illegal. The inviolability of mail is a major part of the Bill and one can imagine the problems in a court of law if people could breach that inviolability because they suspected that a packet might contain something illegal, for whatever spurious reasons. I understand that the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) is trying to resolve a difficulty that we want to resolve.
Mr. Bercow: I understand where the Minister is coming from. The new clause is as much as anything a probing motion. It is entirely reasonable for him to cavil at the idea that someone might tamper with mail on the basis of suspicion, but would he agree that demonstrable reason to believe might be a justification?
8.30 pm
Mr. Johnson: That is one of the matters that we are examining. We must do so in the context of other legislation that is passing through the House and the universal declaration of human rights. Complications are coming from other areas. However, the hon. Gentleman has raised a valid point, which we shall explore with the aim of dealing with it by introducing an amendment in another place.
Mr. Brady: I seek clarification of one point that has arisen during this short exchange. Will the Minister make it clear that when the Government bring forward their amendment or new clause, it will not be considered reasonable for a trade union or any other body to decide on political grounds whether mail should be allowed to go to one country or another or one company or another, however despicable the regime might be? Does the Minister agree that it is unacceptable for trade unions or other bodies to interfere with the mail?
Mr. Johnson: I think that that issue was dealt with in a piece of legislation in 1981. The action to which reference has been made took place in 1978, and I do not regard it as being part of the Bill. Perhaps employment relations legislation is the right area in which to raise it.
I hope that the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire will feel able to withdraw the new clause on the basis of my comments.
Mr. Page: In the spirit of co-operation, and bearing in mind the Minister's poor health, I shall not press him any further at this stage. However, I look forward to him introducing--this will be the third time of asking--a suitable amendment in another place that will address a serious problem. The amendment should be inserted in the Bill, rather than leaving the matter to the courts to try to find a solution.
Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |