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Mr. Alan Johnson: The matter was the subject of passionate debate in Committee. If the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) has had his appendix removed, I am sure it has a postcode on it. He was still seething about events that occurred in the early 1970s--as are many other hon. Members.
Let us get that matter straight. The Post Office is not responsible for the changes introduced by the Government of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) in the early 1970s, who moved Slough from Buckinghamshire to Berkshire and Bournemouth from Hampshire to Dorset, and introduced the county of Humberside--that was never warmly received in my neck of the woods. All those changes had nothing to do with the Post Office.
Similarly, some people believe that the Post Office is responsible for numbering and naming roads and streets. It is not. If it were, the sequences would be much more logical. As we are all aware when we go canvassing, No. 2 can be followed by No. 23. Such issues are not the responsibility of the Post Office.
Clause 105 would ensure that the postcode address file was maintained and made available to those who wanted to use it. That provision has unleashed much passion. I have already taken the matter up with the Post Office, but I shall briefly explain that the postcode is the Post Office's system of routing mail through the new automated equipment. Only the post town and the postcode are needed, thus for this place SW1 is the outward code and OAA is the inward code. That is
all the Post Office needs. Anyone can put the county name on his letters if he wants to do so. That is fine. The Post Office does not say that county names are not allowed.
Mr. Drew: All the counties would have to be Tipp-Exed off the envelopes.
Mr. Johnson: That would create a few more jobs in the Post Office.
To insist that the Post Office must go to the enormous expense of adding a superfluous element to the postcode, which is not needed, would be over-prescriptive.
Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion): The Minister said that only the postcode and the postal address were needed. In that case, why has the Post Office in Wales admitted that envelopes addressed in Welsh--even when they include the postcode--take longer to arrive than those addressed in English?
10.15 pm
Mr. Johnson: That is one question that I absolutely cannot answer. I will take it up with the Post Office.
Counties are very important to people. We understand that; the issue is laden with emotion. However, although we may be prepared to use a county name in our addresses, it is a big step from that to insisting that the Post Office keeps superfluous information on a postcode address file that this legislation would give it a duty to maintain, at considerable expense.
What I will do to address the point raised by the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) is continue my discussions with the Post Office. I shall ask about the point that was raised by the hon. Member for Ynys Mon (Mr. Jones)--the suggestion that all Welsh county names will be abolished by the end of the year. I shall also raise the point that was, I believe, the original catalyst for the debate--the argument that people who have the wrong postcode find it difficult to get it changed because there is a horrendous system of bureaucracy to go through, which is not useful to the Post Office as it means that mail is delayed because the wrong postcode is used.
I will take up those issues, but I ask hon. Members--
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Will the Minister respond to the argument that sometimes insurance companies take the Post Office address as the formal address, and that that address might suggest that a residence is in an area where it is not? It might be described as being in Greater Manchester, when it is not. Although I have great regard for Manchester, that great second city of our country, there could be financial implications. If people want their county to be displayed on their address, is it right that a service provider such as the Post Office should tell them, "That is superfluous as far as we are concerned, and you can't have it"? Should not the Post Office serve the public?
Mr. Johnson: The Post Office is not saying that the use of county names will delay the mail, or that it is prohibited. People are perfectly entitled to use a county name in the address. The point is that the Post Office does
not need the county name for the postcode address file. It is unnecessary to insist that it puts superfluous information into the file.I shall send a copy of the Hansard of this debate to the chief executive of the Post Office tomorrow to further our discussions on solving some of these problems. I ask the Opposition to withdraw the amendment, but if they press it to a Division I hope that hon. Members will vote against it.
Mr. Page: I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), lying on his sickbed, will be delighted by the passion that his amendments have raised. Representations have come from Wales, Scotland, northern England, middle England and southern England. However, I shall keep the Minister's uncaring, unfeeling response from my hon. Friend in case it inhibits his recovery. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 109
Amendments made: No. 39, in page 63, line 44, after "order" insert--
', or of the Treasury to make regulations,'.
No. 40, in page 64, line 1, after "order" insert--
', or of the Treasury to make regulations,'.
No. 41, in page 64, line 6, after "State" insert--
'or (as the case may be) the Treasury'.
No. 42, in page 64, line 16, at end insert--
'( ) The power of the Secretary of State under section (Subsidy for public post offices) as extended by this section may be exercised by modifying any enactment.'.
No. 43, in page 64, line 16, at end insert--
'( ) Regulations under section (Application of customs and excise enactments to certain postal packets) shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of the House of Commons.'.--[Mr. Betts.]
Mr. Alan Johnson: I beg to move amendment No. 82, in page 64, line 19, leave out--
'and paragraph 2 of Schedule 3'.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 83 to 88.
Mr. Johnson: Amendments Nos. 82, 83, 85, 86 and 88 preserve existing pension rights in the various pension schemes--of which there are many in the Post Office, some dating from civil service days. They protect those pension rights and transfer them across to the new Post Office company. Amendments Nos. 84 and 87 concern third-party dealings with the Post Office company in respect of land, and remove the burden on the third party to inquire whether Treasury consent to any previous dealings with the land was needed, or, if it was needed, whether it was given.
These are technical amendments, which I do not think will raise much controversy. They protect the pension rights of all those working within the Post Office.
Mr. Forth: That is all very well, but the Minister has not even begun to explain why the apparently simple and
straightforward part of the schedule that the amendment seeks to replace has to be replaced. Presumably, if the Minister were of a mind to do so, he could explain what was defective in the original wording, which I thought was self-explanatory. It would appear that there was something sufficiently defective in six lines of text for them to be replaced by the substantial wording before us, particularly in amendment No. 83.It is an old trick by Ministers, which I have come across over the years--and officials know this as well--to slip the word "technical" into an explanation, or lack of explanation, thinking that that will lull the House into a false sense of security and all will be well. You and I, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have been around for long enough to know that that is not always the case, and that the use of the word "technical" is not sufficient to explain the replacement of six rather simple and elegant lines of text with the very long, complicated wording in amendment No. 83 and the other amendments.
It does not do the Minister or the House justice for him to expect to slide over the matter in that way. We need to know with more precision what was wrong with the previous words that required them to be replaced by this lengthy and complicated text. What is in the detail of amendment No. 83 that should give more reassurance to those for whom we have the greatest concern, the employees, with regard to their accumulated pension rights? Why was it felt necessary to go to this length of detail, unless there may have been something wrong, something rather sinister, lurking in the background that required reassurance of this length and this description for the employees involved?
An answer to that question is the very least that we could expect at this stage, not a muttering about "technical", and not a superficiality of the kind that the Minister seems to have picked up very quickly. It is one thing for old ministerial lags to get away with that sort of thing, but from a fresh-faced new boy of the type that we have before us today I find it rather shocking.
All that I wanted to do, Mr. Deputy Speaker--and I will not presume upon your patience any longer--was to give the Minister an opportunity to shine on this occasion, to put him through his paces and let him show his mastery of the amendment so that he could explain to us, but, more important, to the people most affected, what it is that he believes this will do that the previous wording did not do.
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