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10.49 pm
Mr. Baldry: I promise not to detain the House long, but, having sat through proceedings on a number of Select Committee reports on the Post Office and most of the debates in Committee, I want to make a few comments.
On Third Reading, the Bill is a muddled halfway house and the Government have failed to give the Post Office the freedom that it needs to compete against its international rivals. Without full commercial freedom, it cannot take advantage of being the most efficient postal service in the world. Curiously, new clause 1, which proposed some subsidies, was introduced on Report. All Conservative Members, along with the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, wish that not an opaque
subsidy, but a real income stream, had been introduced to support the post office network. The proposal was needed only because the Government are proceeding with the disastrous policy of switching to automated credit transfer, which threatens the survival of thousands of sub-post offices across Britain.In months to come, Conservative Members will look for transparency in the accounting structures to ensure that there is no undue or hidden cross-subsidy from monopoly to non-monopoly areas in the Post Office. We have welcomed the decision to grant plc status, but there is no support for the 100 per cent. retention of public ownership. The Government should have sold at least 51 per cent. of the shares, which would have enabled the Post Office to compete on a level playing field, particularly with Dutch and German post offices. We all know why the Government held back and this evening we heard examples of how they are beholden to the trade unions. The Minister said that Post Office Bills come around only once every decade and it will be interesting to see how long this one endures. Back-tracking on plans to reduce the Post Office's legal monopoly over deliveries from £1 to 50p, which followed strong trade union opposition, is another example of how the Government are in thrall to the unions.
Without full commercial freedom, the Post Office cannot take advantage of being the most efficient postal service in the world, so there is real doubt as to whether the Bill will succeed in its aim of providing greater commercial freedoms. It offers little comfort to those threatened with the loss of their livelihood following the Treasury-led decision to switch benefit payments to ACT and the future of a third of the 18,5000 sub-post offices is at risk.
Although the Bill puts in place the mechanism for setting out access criteria for the post office network, details will not be forthcoming until after the performance and innovation unit has reported. Again, that is a bizarre way to implement legislation. However, nothing surprises me about a Government who managed to introduce what they admit to be the most important measure in the Bill not on Second Reading or in Committee, but on Report. That is perhaps their hallmark; it is certainly the hallmark of the Department of Trade and Industry. They create huge problems and spend a considerable time struggling to solve them. That is apparent in automotive industry policy, energy policy--yesterday's statement to the House made it clear--and postal services policy.
We all hope that the Post Office will be able to compete against international competition, but I fear that this muddled, halfway house of a Bill is a disservice to the Post Office and to United Kingdom consumers.
10.53 pm
Mr. Burns: As my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) said, the Bill is a muddled halfway house. It represents a group of issues that have been lumped together in a Post Office Bill because they relate to post offices. However, for people outside the House who are not aficionados of the minutiae of the problems facing the Post Office in respect of its ability to compete, the outstanding concern is the future of the post office and sub-post office network throughout this country.
As the Secretary of State candidly admitted in a somewhat cavalier fashion, his thinking and decision making were affected not by the relevance of last
Wednesday's debates in Westminster Hall and in the Chamber, but--his words show how the Government treat the House with utter contempt--the 3 million signatures on the petition from sub-post offices. That is what most influenced his decision to try to allay public fears.The thing that worries me about the Bill is that all of us, regardless of which side of the House we are on, have in the past six months or so seen the concerns and anger of pensioners and others in receipt of benefits who use either their rural sub-post office or their suburban post office to collect those benefits. We have seen the concerns and anger of postmasters and postmistresses, whose livelihoods have depended on the structure and business as currently constituted. That anger has been caused by the Treasury's decision, aided and abetted by the Secretary of State for Social Security, to change the way in which benefits will be paid.
Figures have been bandied about over a number of weeks and months, both on the Floor of the House and in Committee--there has been the threat of possibly a third of sub-post offices being closed. That is what has generated tremendous fear among those who use sub-post offices and those who operate them, for whom it is their livelihood.
It has brought fear to a number of Labour Members, who have witnessed the pressures felt by their constituents who have been so concerned about the implications of the Treasury-driven policies. One only has to read regional newspapers to realise that Labour Members are queueing up to have their photographs appear in them, claiming their support for sub-post offices and for the rights of their constituents to continue to collect their benefits as they always have. However, it is interesting that few Labour Members have today echoed the concerns that they expressed in local newspapers.
The Deputy Chief Whip, the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley), has been sitting in his place listening to the debate. No doubt the serried ranks behind him have been aware of it. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) described the Secretary of State as the Corporal Jones of the scenario. The Deputy Chief Whip's colleagues behind him know that Herr Flick is keeping an eye on the cohorts of the Labour Benches to ensure that no one gets up and causes any problems for the Government.
The problem is new clause 1, which the Secretary of State introduced today. I do not believe that its inclusion in the Bill, to which presumably we will give a Third Reading in the not too distant future, enhances the Bill. I do not believe that it addresses the problems that the Secretary of State has sought to convince the House it does.
The new clause seeks to introduce a subsidy system. The trouble is that it is so vague. There are so many ifs, buts, mays and shalls in it that there are many escape routes that allow the Government not to bring in a scheme if they decide at a later date either that they can get away with not doing so, or, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) said, that they do not want to open up a bottomless pit of public subsidies ad infinitum.
As was said earlier, subsection (6) of the new clause even has a provision to ensure that the power to make a scheme under the new clause shall not be exercised without the consent of the Treasury.
As I reminded the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in an intervention--which he did not deal with specifically--he has been a Chief Secretary to the Treasury; and, as any Chief Secretary will know, the Treasury's workings are supreme within Government. The Treasury's consent for any scheme involving the expenditure of public money is the paramount factor.
It will be interesting to see whether the Secretary of State is sufficiently candid to tell the House before the Bill is passed whether the Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry have calculated the subsidy's cost; whether the Treasury has told him that it has placed a ceiling on the amount of public money it is prepared to spend, thereby possibly restricting the scheme's effectiveness; and whether the scheme is time limited or open ended.
If we are to deal with the concerns of the general public and of those who run sub-post offices, we need answers to those questions. Sub-postmasters need to know whether they will be helped, or whether the scheme is simply spin. They need to know whether--once the Bill is passed by both Houses and Parliament can no longer try to amend it, and if the Government will not implement the scheme that the Secretary of State has unveiled today--they will be left to hang out to dry.
As half a fish is better than none, I do not oppose new clause 1. However, it is seriously flawed by its vagueness and by the sparsity of detail on it provided to the House. I hope that the Minister who replies to the debate will address those issues. [Interruption.] The Deputy Chief Whip disappoints me by shaking his head. He seems to be suggesting that no Minister will bother to reply to the debate. That is unfortunate because this is an important Third Reading debate on an important Bill. We should have had that information before Third Reading.
11.2 pm
Mr. Tim Collins (Westmorland and Lonsdale): As has been said often in the debate, the Bill is somewhat disappointing. I give the Government half marks for recognising that the Post Office needs greater commercial freedom, and also for recognising that their own decision making has threatened the future of the rural post office network and that they need to be responsible for providing financial support.
I cannot, however, give them credit for the half-hearted way in which they have introduced a half-thought-through privatisation scheme; the way in which they have not properly considered the implications of the commercial freedoms that they are introducing in the Post Office; and--as my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) said--the way in which they have clearly inadequately considered the example of similar events elsewhere in Europe and in the rest of the world.
As for the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Cotter), who spoke on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I give him credit for making a speech that, in many ways, was a typical Liberal Democrat speech. He was half on the Government's side and half against the Government. He therefore spent most of his speech attacking the official Opposition. He certainly gave no justification--no justification can be given--for Liberal
Democrat Members' decision last week to vote with the Government against the official Opposition on a motion to save the rural post office network by scrapping the Government's plans.
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