| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Bercow: Would my hon. Friend like to say something about paragraph (b) of amendment No. 62, tabled in his name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan)? That amendment seems eminently reasonable, and I will be genuinely perplexed if Ministers do not support it. Can my hon. Friend enlighten me?
Mr. Page: I have always had great difficulty in grasping why Ministers do not support my amendments, because I have always thought all those amendments, both here and in Committee, to be eminently reasonable and practicable in helping the Post Office and the whole postal industry to provide a better service in the very competitive world outside.
Dr. George Turner (North-West Norfolk) rose--
Mr. Page: The hon. Gentleman must hold his horses as I gallop to the end of my sentence.
It amazes me that the Minister has not accepted our amendments. But I am being very kind to him today, because he is obviously under the weather. He is not well, and he is struggling to get through, so I shall not push too many of my amendments to what should be their logical conclusion.
Dr. Turner: I should like to take the opportunity to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on at least realising the wisdom of withdrawing the amendment he moved in Committee that would have halved the weight of the parcels participating in the universal service. It seems that he does not, on reflection, think that all the amendments he moved in Committee were sensible, and I congratulate him.
Mr. Page: I am always open to congratulations. Flattery, rather than kicks, gets people further in the world. But it will come as a huge surprise to the hon. Gentleman that not every amendment that one tables is selected for debate. There were a number of amendments that we would have liked to table, but did not, because we did not believe that they would be selected. I must express appreciation to the powers that be that have allowed these amendments to be given another run around the course. I hope that this time the Minister will stiffen his backbone, take his courage in both hands, act in accordance with all the other metaphors and similes that I can think of, and accept them.
I shall say no more about that amendment and draw my remarks to a close by saying a few words about amendment No. 73.
The amendments that we are considering arise from issues that both I and my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton raised in Committee. We argued then, and on my hon. Friend's behalf I argue again now, that it would be appropriate for the regulatory body to collect information about the development of postal services within the rest of Europe and about the performance of the postal service providers there.
If my memory serves me correctly, the Minister broadly agreed that that would be sensible. I do not want to say "desirable", but when we discussed the matter he seemed to express some enthusiasm. I am sorry to say that his apparent generosity on that occasion does not appear to have been translated into action.
My hon. Friend indicated that we would raise the matter again on Report if there was no response, or an inadequate response, by the Department. That explains why I am returning to the matter now. I hope that the Minister will think again about the small burst of enthusiasm for this measure that he expressed in Committee and consider whether he feels like accepting it now.
As I said, this clutch of amendments would gear up the Post Office to face a competitive world that will become even more competitive. Fairly soon, there will be pressures from Europe on our postal services and on the Royal Mail. The quicker that we start to adjust to them and to prepare for them, the better.
9 pm
Mr. Cotter: As the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner) said, Conservative Members attempted in Committee to hit severely at the universal service. They have possibly since taken fright at that, because we are dealing with a serious issue. Communities are at risk and people expect and are entitled to expect a good service. We have had a universal service for many years. However, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, one form of amendment was tabled in Committee but the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) has made another attempt to attack the universal service and that is linked to the reduction in the limit from £1 to 50p.
I do not understand the purpose of the amendment. An attack on the universal service would affect people across the country. Under the Bill, the regulator has an obligation to consider this issue, and I would much prefer his considered view to this amendment.
Serious issues are involved. The £1 limit has been in place for many years, and has effectively reduced in value. Competition from e-mail and other services is another factor, and if the limit were reduced the estimated loss of income to the Post Office would be about £100 million. In addition, people in rural areas would suffer a diminution in their service.
If, in due course, the regulator examines the issues that I have raised and comes to the conclusion, after careful consideration, that the proposal in the amendment is a way forward, it will be a different story. The regulator will have considered the issues properly and taken into account the position as it will be after the Bill has been enacted. That is preferable to accepting the amendment
tonight. I look forward to the Minister's response. Instead of taking the precipitate action proposed in the amendment, we should consider carefully any suggestion that might affect the universal service.
Mr. Alan Johnson: The hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) mentioned prodigal sons, broken marriages and kidnapping. I thought that he was devising a Jeffrey Archer plot rather than considering the Postal Services Bill.
Amendments Nos. 60 and 61 contain arguments that are so stale that they are curling at the edges. We debated the matter in the House on 8 December on a revocation order and we debated it again in Committee. I very much appreciate the remarks of the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Cotter), but I remind him that he moved an amendment in Committee to bring down the £1 monopoly limit to 50p. It was forced to a vote and he voted against his own amendment.
Mr. Cotter: As the Minister knows very well, we were trying to probe a point and he has misrepresented me very badly. On that occasion, he accused me of being mischievous, so I accuse him of being equally mischievous tonight.
Mr. Johnson: The hon. Gentleman may well be right.
Our argument is simple. The Trade and Industry Committee report suggested that instead of taking the drastic step of halving the monopoly at the very time we are setting up the Postal Services Commission, it would make sense, as the hon. Gentleman said, for us to ask the commission to do the necessary work. It should also make the judgment not whether to reduce the monopoly level to 50p but whether to reduce it at all, and if so by how much. That argument is perfectly defensible.
On that basis, the Conservatives have accused us of delay. Their manifesto for the 1992 election, which they won--it will probably be their last election win for many a year--contained a commitment to introduce a regulator and reduce the monopoly limit to a level closer to the price of a first-class stamp. The party that is so keen on competition and regulation did absolutely nothing about those manifesto commitments, which many hon. Members on both sides of the House would have supported. Instead, it went off on a wild adventure of privatisation. If one sprinkled the Conservatives' manifesto with rosewater, held it up to the light and looked at it from every angle, one would find no reference to privatisation.
We are having to wait a few months for the commission to be set up and, perhaps, for the monopoly limit to be reduced. We agreed that the limit should be sufficient only to guarantee universal service at a uniform tariff. That is the principal objective that we have given the commission. As to the wait, I can only say to the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire that under the previous Government we waited five years and there was no movement at all.
It was timely of my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Dr. Turner) to point out that Conservative Members, who say that they are defending the universal service obligation, tabled an amendment in Committee which would have allowed parcels to be delivered in remote rural areas outside the terms of the universal service obligation. That would particularly have affected
parts of Scotland such as the highlands and islands, where the Conservatives have no parliamentary representation. They have met Disraeli's great objective of being a one nation party: they have no Members in Wales or Scotland; they have Members only in England.That amendment would have meant that the Post Office would no longer have a commitment to deliver to those areas, and if it did so, it could charge a higher tariff for going to the far north or to remote rural areas. We should remember that proposal the next time the Conservatives start banging on about how devoted they are to the universal service obligation. The Opposition's arguments are stale and we have debated them in the House before. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have the sense not to press amendments Nos. 60 and 61 to a vote, but, if he does, I hope that they will be defeated.
I cannot be much kinder about amendment No. 62, which thuds along heavily like a dinosaur through the Bill's lush terrain. We have debated the matter before. It is our intention that the requirements on universal service providers--such as quality of service standards, regulatory accounts, complaints and compensation schemes--will be imposed and enforced through the licensing regime. The outline licence has been distributed and comments are invited until September. All contributions will be gratefully received. Such matters should be dealt with in that manner, not in the Bill. We are setting up a commission, and we ought to allow it to decide how to do its work.
The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) is not in his place, but he was seized by new subsection (2A)(b) in the amendment, which refers to cross-subsidies. That matter is decided by the European postal directive, which will bring him no comfort. The directive allows cross-subsidy from the reserved to the non-reserved area, provided that it is necessary to maintain a universal service, so parcels, for example, can be cross-subsidised in certain circumstances. That is why the amendment should not be pressed.
I can be a little kinder about amendments Nos. 64 to 69, which at least show a little originality. However, if I have understood their purpose correctly, it rather stands on its head the amendment that we introduced in Committee to give the Postal Services Commission the ability to refer to the Competition Commission any matters on which it considered that there was a conflict with public interest. Under the Bill as amended, the Postal Services Commission will have that important power to protect the public interest, and we need no further amendments to that effect.
Finally, on amendments Nos. 72 and 73, perhaps I am becoming a little more mellow. The amendments would create a specific duty, requiring the commission to compare annually the efficiency and economy of postal services provided by licence holders to postal services in general, in the UK and elsewhere.
The problem is that that is an unnecessary level of prescription. It specifies exactly how the commission should carry out its duties. We think that that should be left to the commission. It suggests that the commission should carry out benchmarking annually. The commission can decide on the importance of benchmarking and
whether it should be done annually, biennially or whenever. It is ridiculous for the Bill to be prescriptive on such issues.In addition, the amendment specifies that the commission should carry out its work to an arbitrary time scale, which once again is not helpful.
We have said many times that our intention in the Bill is to set up an independent regulator. The Bill sets out the main functions, duties and powers of the commission, but it does not tell the commission how to fulfil those functions. That is for the commission to decide; otherwise it would not be a fully independent body. The amendment goes against the concept of the independent regulator. I therefore hope that the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire will withdraw it.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |