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Mr. Page: The Minister was brutal to the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Cotter), but it was unnecessary to go over the top and try to accommodate him by tabling one or two minor amendments. If the Minister is going to be rude to someone, he should stick to that and not try to make amends in such a mealy-mouthed manner. If he tells me that crawling is successful, I am prepared to crawl to advance amendment No. 70. However, I have a strange feeling that, no matter how I abased myself, I would not gain the Minister's approval for the amendment.
Amendment No. 70 seeks to amend clause 38 to ensure that information about anyone's commercial interests is not entered on the register that is available for inspection by the public. It would also grant the right to raise with the Secretary of State an objection to an entry on the register. I cannot understand why an individual's justifiable right to such provisions should be resisted.
The current proposal for protecting confidential commercial information from disclosure on the register of licence is inadequate. It could discourage potential postal operators from applying for licences. The White Paper published in July 1999 and entitled "Post Office Reform: A world class service for the 21st century" was often cited in Committee. It dealt with the regulator's powers to publish information. Paragraph 32 on page 28 states:
- The Regulator will have . . . a power to publish information for the benefit of consumers and in the interests of good regulation, subject to tests relating to substantial harm, including matters of commercial confidentiality and public interest.
- The aim will be to report--
- once the Strategic Plan has been approved.
- We recommend the greatest possible degree of transparency compatible with genuine requirements of commercial confidentiality on this and future major purchases by the Post Office.
However, amendment No. 70 would retain the provision's flexibility by continuing to allow the regulator to use discretion so far as is practical and enter in the register information that would be in the public interest. As a further safeguard, it would give people the express right to object to the Secretary of State about the entry of any item. That would complement his existing power to direct the regulator not to enter items. The amendment is perfectly fair. It would protect commercial interests and encourage those who make applications, as they would know that their commercial secrets would not be divulged. It would be of general benefit.
Mr. Drew: Can the hon. Gentleman give an example that would go to the Secretary of State, but would not go to the commission? I am struggling to think of one.
Mr. Page: I can understand the hon. Gentleman struggling; I listened to part of his speech and understand his difficulties. A commercial company may want to have certain details entered on the register, but not those of a marketing plan that it wished to introduce, an activity that it wanted to undertake to gain extra market share, or a method of delivery or operation. It might want matters such as potential ownership to be kept back. I can see no difficulty with that because such information might help the opposition and that would damage the company's interests.
Time is moving on, so I shall speak to amendment No. 74, which would insert the words:
- The Council shall, in exercising its functions, have regard to the interest of . . . individuals who are disabled or chronically sick . . . of pensionable age . . . with low incomes . . . residing in rural area, and . . . homeless . . .
In an age of improved communication, it is surely indefensible that the Government have not highlighted the homeless as one of the groups for which the council should have regard. The expansion of electronic communications means that the council should consider the interests of the homeless as much as it considers those of the others on that list, such as the elderly, the disabled or the chronically sick. Why not the homeless? That could be easily achieved by designating a post office box number so that they could receive mail at a sub-post office.
9.30 pm
The problem of homelessness is growing in importance because the Government have failed to tackle it. The most recent Government figures show that, in the past year, there were 105,900 priority homelessness acceptances. In a comparable period in 1997, the figure was still far too high, but it was 102,410, so there has been an increase of more than 3,000.
The measure could help the homeless to take a proper place in society. If one extrapolates the trend--I should like to think that the Government are trying to do something about it--it means that, every day under this Government, five more people are being forced into homelessness.
Mr. Mike Hancock (Portsmouth, South): I am touched by the hon. Gentleman's compassion for the homeless, but if you are arguing for more to be done for the homeless than giving them a post code and somewhere to collect their mail, I could understand it. However, could you explain--
Mr. Hancock: I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman perhaps anticipates the intervention that I must make.
Mr. Hancock: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I should be grateful if the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) would explain the real benefit that he is trying to get for the homeless through that proposition.
Mr. Page: It is nice of the hon. Gentleman to drop into the debate, which has been taking place for a number of hours. He was in for a few minutes several hours ago. Frankly, if I have to explain to the Liberal Democrats the advantages of helping the homeless, we are in difficulty. As I have already said--I shall repeat for the hon. Gentleman very slowly--in this time of electronic communication, it must be of advantage that the homeless are able to have a post office box number for communication and to get advice and support from the Government, rather than using the insecure and inaccurate methods that exist at present. I would like to think that, when the hon. Gentleman looks at Hansard, he will be consumed with embarrassment that he has been so dismissive of that genuine attempt to help the homeless.
The Minister will know that this is not a one-off attempt, or something that has just been produced. We ran it in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland
and Melton, who unfortunately cannot be with us this evening, argued far more eloquently than I have that the homeless should be included, yet the Minister seems to turn it down. I remind him that the Prime Minister promised that Labour would
- do everything in our power to end the scandal of homelessness, to tackle the spectacle of people sleeping rough on the streets and to end the waste of families sleeping in bed and breakfast accommodation.
Mr. Alan Johnson: As I have said, we believe that clause 38 provides sufficient protection. Amendment No. 70 would undermine the commission's independence by substituting for its discretion what would amount to a formal mechanism for persons to appeal to the Secretary of State if they object to an entry, together with a power for the Secretary of State to direct the commission not to make an entry, if he so decides. Such a procedure would be an unnecessary bureaucratic burden on the Secretary of State and would limit the discretion and independence of the commission without substantively increasing the protection of individuals. Regardless, clause 38(7) provides the power for the Secretary of State to direct the commission not to enter in the register anything that he considers
- would be against the public interest or any person's commercial interests.
As the appointed regulator of the postal market, with clear duties and daily responsibility for regulation, no body is better placed than the commission to weigh up the merits of an entry in the register and, in keeping the register, to decide what is in the public interest. The clause provides adequate safeguards, and I hope that the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) will not press amendment No. 74.
As for the hon. Gentleman's argument on homeless people, originally, the Bill required the commission to have regard in its work to certain groups of consumers. However, the point was clearly made that that requirement should be imposed also on the consumer council in doing its work. Government Amendment No. 14 provides for such a requirement.
Opposition Members have used that provision to revisit the argument about why homeless people should be grouped with those who are disabled or chronically sick, those who are of pensionable age, those who have low incomes and those who reside in rural areas. The Committee rejected the proposal not because it was hard-hearted or unconcerned about the perils of homelessness, but because, first, the list of those to whom our provision applies is not prescriptive. Moreover, the end of Government amendment No. 14 provides that the list
- is not to be taken as implying that regard may not be had to the interests of other descriptions of persons.
We have had no reports of homeless people having problems with postal services. Neither Centrepoint, Shelter nor any of the other charities involved with the homeless have advanced the type of argument made today by the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire. They have not said that providing homeless people with a post office box number is part of the solution in assisting those who sleep rough on the streets, particularly the streets of London.
The Government's approach to a solution--on which I think there is a broad, cross-party consensus--is that the first step is to get homeless people off the streets, not to encourage a street life style. Many of those people have serious problems, whether it is with alcohol abuse, drug abuse, or something else. If we are to tackle those problems, we have to get homeless people off the streets.
Anyone can have a poste restante address or a post office address. Moreover, once a homeless person is in a hostel, he or she will have a postal address at which he can receive benefits and other post.
As we said in Committee, we would not be assisting the homeless by including them in the Bill's provisions and by saying that both the commission and the council have a duty to provide postal addresses for the homeless. Such a provision would encourage a street life style and achieve precisely the opposite to the sentiments expressed by the hon. Gentleman.
Therefore, as the Government said in Committee, the House can safely oppose the proposal without being seen to be cruel or heartless. The hon. Gentleman's arguments, both today and in Committee, simply do not stand up. I should be very surprised if Conservative Members pushed those arguments in a proper debate on how to tackle homelessness. We are addressing that in the Bill, and the hon. Gentleman's comments were unimpressive. I urge the House to rejects amendments Nos. 70 and 74.
Amendments made: No. 2, in page 18, line 29, at end insert--
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