Clause
16
Investigations
relating to public post
offices
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
Clause 16 provides a
specific power for the new council to investigate any matter relating
to the number and location of public post offices in the United
Kingdom. That specific function recognises the importance of the post
office network, and the valuable
work undertaken by Postwatch on the issue. It mirrors the provisions in
the Postal Services Act 2000. There is no change to, or weakening of,
the powers to protect consumer
interest.
Maintaining
the existing sectoral expertise in the postal services sector is vital
to the success of the new body, and we recognise the importance of that
in a sector that has only recently been opened up to competition.
Having a strong consumer advocate in the postal services sector, and
maintaining the sectoral expertise that Postwatch has built up and
which the new council will inherit are vital to the Government's
proposals for a sustainable post office
network.
As a result
of the clause, the new council will continue the role of Postwatch in
representing the views of consumers in the Post Office restructuring
programme, offering consumers a stronger voice on that and similar
issues that arise in other sectors. We envisage that the new
arrangements will be in place within a year of the Bill receiving Royal
Assent.
The Minister
for Trade, my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield
(Mr. McCartney) referred yesterday to the project that is
under way to plan the implementation of this important Bill. He assured
the hon. Members for Hertford and Stortford and for Richmond Park that
we would keep them briefed on the work as it
progresses.
Postwatch
is fully engaged in early planning for implementation of the new
arrangements. Both the chair and chief executive attend the two groups
that have been set up to oversee implementation. Both groups meet
monthly, and also include representatives from Energywatch, the
National Consumer Council and the Office of Fair Trading. The groups
are tasked with ensuring that consumer interest continues to be
effectively represented both during the transition to the new
arrangements, and once the new arrangements are in place. Their
responsibilities include work on the timetable for
implementation.
Other
work undertaken by the groups so far includes: the mapping of existing
work; the transferral of resources and best practice to the new council
as well as additional work that the new council could usefully
undertake; the identification of tasks required to close down
Energywatch, Postwatch and the National Consumer Council; and early
planning to extend the Consumer Direct service to the energy and postal
services
sectors.
We
are taking great care to ensure that the work being undertaken by
Postwatch on Post Office network restructuring will not be disrupted
during the transition period. Additional staff and other resources are
being allocated to Postwatch to assist them with the programme, and
these resources will be carried forward into the new arrangements for
the duration of that
work.
We recognise the
importance that Postwatch places on the work of its regional
committees, and the role they will play in the assessment of the Post
Office network restructuring programme. The Bill makes specific
provision to enable the new council to establish regional committees
when it considers them to be beneficial to consumers. That is a matter
for the new council to determine, but as I have said, we are working
with the existing consumer bodies to plan for the implementation of the
new arrangements. I move that this clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Prisk:
I am grateful to the
Minister for those opening remarks. However, I think that they focus
primarily on the transfer of where we are now to what is proposed in
the Bill rather than what is actually in the Bill. The closure of post
offices is clearly a matter of great concern to many of our
communities. The Minister will know about both the hurt and the anxiety
that the policies of the Government and Royal Mail are causing.
However, I do not propose to rehearse here all those arguments about
the way in which the Governments policy is failing many of our
communities. What I would like to do is to explore the issue and
thelikely operation of clause 16, particularly the phrase in
subsection
1:
Without
prejudice to the generality of section 11, the Council may investigate
any matter relating
to
(a) the
number and location of public post
offices.
That is,
apparently, a very wide remit and it is welcome in that sense. However,
I would like to explore whatthe phrase means in practice. For
example, wouldthe council be able to investigate the rationale
of the Ministers policy and of Royal Mails decisions in
the current round of planned closures? It is unlikely, I would have
thought, that every last closure under the current proposals will be
completed by the time that this measure comes into force. So, one would
like to know whether, in fact, this power would extend backwards, to
enable the council to examine something that is brought before it at
that point, albeit that the original policy may have occurred before
the Bill becomes law. That is one area I would like to
examine.
It is not
just a question of the retrospective nature of considering something
that happened before the Bill becomes law; it is a question of
examining the effect of that policy, which will still be current when
the Bill becomes law. I do not think that a defence of
Its retrospective, therefore we cannot look at
it would be sufficient. However, I would be interested to hear
the Ministers reply.
In
particular, thereafter would the council be able to investigate the
funding issues that Royal Mail would often cite as being a case for
future closures or relocations? Royal Mail is a public company and
therefore has certain matters of openness, but it will also have
certain matters of confidentiality, which Ministers often cite when
they debate these issues in the House. Further to that, if the relevant
papers are not forthcomingwhether from Royal Mail, Post Office
Counters, or other related sub-units of the organisation, or indeed the
Departmenthow will the council be able to secure those papers
in order to fulfil its investigations? I think that those are the
principal areas that I would like to explore with the Minister, if I
may.
Susan
Kramer:
I would like to explore much
further the transition arrangements, as it were, that have been
described, and establish whether it is possible to put in place
transition arrangements that will be robust enough to deal with the
kind of pace of closure that is being proposed for the Post Office
network. Some 2,500 closures are proposed, the process will start in
the summer and extend over two years and that figure does not include
voluntary closures, which presumably will take place at the same time,
particularly if we continue to have the withdrawal of business from our
post offices, which makes it less and less economic for individuals to
remain as postmasters and sub-postmistresses.
The Minister
mentioned the regional structure that is so critically important to the
way that Postwatch currently responds to consumer needs and to issues
related to post office closures. As I understand it, I think that the
nine regional committee members, who I believe are all Government
appointees, will in effect lose their authority somewhere in the
process of this transition. I wonder if the Minister can help us to
understand how there will be some seamless flow of authority when these
various regional committees are playing such a key role in providing
advice. I understand that the consultation period for the closure of a
post office will be something like six weeks, which is a very short
period. If that period happens to coincide with the change in authority
and personnel, perhaps the Minister could give us some idea about how
that change will not disrupt the underlying purpose of the role that
Postwatch has played, which is the role that the National Consumer
Council intends to play in future.
I think that it is necessary to
put on record a great deal of concern about the fact that transition is
something that is easy to describe in theory, but very difficult to
implement, particularly at a time when a very significant piece of work
is being undertaken that is dependent on a part of the structure that
is not core to the activity of the National Consumer Council. The
principle that the Minister has described to us is of a national
council rather than a regional one. It provides the opportunity to
create regional, frequently ad hoc, committees, but that is not core to
the structure or to the functioning of the organisation. We need to put
on record that we are concerned about that.
All the
discussions have focused on the 2,500 post offices that we assume will
be closed with compensation under a forced closure programme. There has
been very little discussion of voluntary closures, however, which will
surely happen at a fairly rapid pace at the same time. There is no
clarity as to whether those post offices will be replaced or what will
replace them. We do not know whether they will be left closed provided
that that does not disrupt the access criteria. How on earth will the
new organisation cope with that process during the
transition?
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
Opposition Members have raised entirely
legitimate concerns about certainty. The hon. Member for Hertford and
Stortford correctly described clause 16(1)(a) as wide-ranging. By way
of assurance to him, I say that the questions that he raised relate to
the independence of the new National Consumer Council, which we have
discussed. That thread will run through our discussion of additional
clauses later.
The
arrangements hand over from Postwatch to the new council the
examination that Postwatch has already made of the Government
proposals. It has been detailed work; I think that Postwatch made 199
recommendations during the course of the consultation, the results of
which are currently being assessed. The Secretary of State is due to
make a statement to the House in May, when we have got past purdah and
fully assessed the 2,500 responses that we have received. I hope that
it will be clear that there has been a thorough examination of the
conclusions that we set out in the consultation and how we reached
them, and of our response to the submissions that we have received.
That also relates to the point that the hon. Member for Richmond Park
raised.
In his statement on 14 December,
the Secretary of State laid out the access criteria that we think are
appropriate for the Post Office. They will provide the template to
which the new National Consumer Council will hold the Government and
Post Office Ltd, by stating that there should be no further diminution.
There is concern about natural closures; there will always be natural
closures, because people retire or die and leases come to an end. That
will be a matter for Post Office Ltd to manage. The council will hold
it to account and protect the consumers
interests.
Mr.
Ellwood:
It is on the point of holding
the Government to account that I wish to pose a question. My hon.
Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford stated that this is an
extremely wide-ranging clause. Were the council to conduct an
investigation into the number and location of post offices in England,
Wales or Scotland, and come to the conclusion that there were not
enough post offices, how would the Government be held to account and
persuaded that we needed
more?
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
The hon. Gentleman tries to
draw me into a hypothetical discussion of what if? It
is a legitimate question. I think that it would be a matter on which
the council would have to engage with Government. If the council felt
that there was a deficiency in the number of post offices or in any
other area for which it thought that the Government was responsible, it
would use the dynamic of its relationship with the Government to deal
with
that.
Mr.
Prisk:
Would that dialogue be made public? Would we know
that the National Consumer Council had made it crystal clear that it
felt that the Governments policy was wrong and that post
offices needed to be reinstated?
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
That brings me neatly on to the hon.
Gentlemans other, earlier points about catering for information
requests, the publication of those requests and how the council could
seek information. We will come on to those issues in clauses 24 and 25,
which include a clear power and expectation for the council to seek
information from licensees, for example. We will grant it a statutory
power to get information and publish reports. We will shortly come on
to the clause that deals with price sensitivity and commercial
confidence in the context of those who give evidence to the NCC or the
Secretary of State. They need to have the confidence that, while the
NCC has the power to seek their evidence and publish reports, they will
not be undermined in the market
place.
9.30 am
My final response to the hon.
Gentleman is that the NCC will be fiercely protective of its
independence. It will want to demonstrate that it will publish that
which it believes to be in the interests of
consumers.
Mr.
Ellwood:
I am grateful to the Minister
for allowing us to probe a little further this small but hugely
significant clause. It clearly gives the council powers to investigate
the number and location of post offices. It would be helpful for the
Committee to understand where its
thoughts, recommendations or investigative reports might lead. If they
are simply going to be put into a file and not presented to the public
or discussed by a committee, we have to ask why the clause is there. It
is there for a reason, and that is to enable the public to understand
what the recommendations are. We need to know whether, when those
recommendations have been made, the Government will be held to account
and whether any action will follow.
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
The answer to the hon. Gentleman lies in the
certainty that the new NCC will be able to act independently. It will
be able to publish information and reports as it wishes. It will then
be a matter for public representatives, should they think it
appropriate, to hold Government to account.
I cannot imagine my colleagues
seeing a report from the NCC that says that the Government have got
something dreadfully wrong and sitting there quietly. They will take us
to task, and I guarantee that the Opposition Benches will be in uproar.
In setting out the powers and the statutory responsibilities of the new
NCC, we are ensuring that there will be opportunities through all the
mechanisms of Parliament for the Government to be held to account
should the NCC challenge them on any matter for which they are
responsible. Nothing is being hidden
here.
Mr.
Prisk:
Before we are in uproar on these Benches, may I
more modestly ask whether, in investigating whether Government policy
is appropriate, the council will be able to call
Ministers?
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
I shall get back to the hon. Gentleman on
that, and advise the Committee. My instinct says that that would not be
an expectation. Later clauses give the NCC the ability to seek
information and evidence. The Trade and Industry Committee has the
opportunity to call Ministers to account, and I am sure that it will
consider any report that is published in due course as closely as it
already does those published by bodies such as Postwatch. It will
certainly hold Ministers to account by requiring them to give
evidence.
Mr.
Prisk:
Would its investigative powers enable it to call
directors of Royal
Mail?
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
I think that we are
anticipating clauses that we have yet to debate. They set out the
powers of the new NCC to seek information and evidence from licensees,
regulators and other interested parties. The hon. Gentleman asked
earlier how we could ensure compliance. There are also powers relating
to the civil courts and regulators, and mechanisms will be put in place
to ensure that it is possible to obtain information that has been
requested.
Mr.
Ellwood:
It is important to place on record our concern
about what has happened with the post offices. I hope that the chairman
of the new council will demonstrate his impartiality. One of his first
tasks will be to make an assessment of the number and location of post
offices in England and Wales. We press the point that it will only be a
matter of time before such a
report comes before Parliament; it will be the first test of the power
of the council, its recommendations and its
accountability.
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
There is an adjournment
debate on post offices in Westminster Hall next Tuesday morning. If any
of my colleagues wish to join me there it will be their first
opportunity to carry on this discussion on post office closures. There
will be another opportunity after the Secretary of State has made a
statement to the House following the consultation exercise, to which we
have had 2,500 responses. Post Office Ltd., with the assistance of
Postwatch, will then engage in consultation with parliamentarians and
local authorities. There will be opportunities to scrutinise the
process of the restructuring programme as it progresses. Common sense
dictates that the transition from the present arrangements to the new
arrangements for this very important core part of the work programme
should be as seamless and efficient as
possible.
Mr.
Prisk:
The Minister is obviously very
keen to discuss the matter in other clauses, in other places and at
other times. We return to the simple question, to which he has not
responded: are the investigatory powers retrospective or not? It would
be nice if he could respond to that question today, but perhaps he will
do so next week, who
knows?
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
The answer is that the new NCC has
independence of action; it can determine what it wants to do. As a
result of the scrutiny offered at present by Postwatch and by what will
happen in the months ahead, I would be surprised if the new NCC would
want, retrospectively, to look at what has gone before, or already been
undertaken, and given that Postwatch will be centrally involved. I am
not going to anticipate what the new NCC will, or will not, want to do;
it will be for the NCC to develop its own work
programme.
Stephen
Pound (Ealing, North) (Lab): May I ask my hon. Friend if
he is as concerned as I am that while we are talking about putting down
markers, as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford did, we are in
danger of extending the ambit and remit of the NCC to the area of
social policy? If post office closures are defined on commercial terms
within a set template, but there is undoubtedly a social policy and a
social impact dimension to the closures, would it be appropriate or
fair for the NCC to have to widen its remit to consider all those
supernumerary issues? That is the role of Parliament; it is the
commercial viability and the service delivered to the consumer that
should be the prime remit of the
NCC.
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
My hon. Friend makes some
strong points. I reinforce what he said by adding that the new NCC has
extensive investigative powers. It will determine its own work
programme and it will be independent in deciding what it wants to look
at. I am not going to anticipate that it will want to revisit the
Governments decisions from the full statement in December, as
that will be a matter for the NCC. I would be surprised if it did so,
given that it will be halfway through the work programme, which the
hon. Member for Richmond Park outlined. However, it is unlikely that it
would not take a very close interest in it.
Susan
Kramer:
I thank the Minister for giving way, as I want to
respond to the comments made by the hon. Member for Ealing, North
(Stephen Pound). In the past, there has been a fairly generous
interpretation of Postwatchs responsibility to the consumer,
which includes many social issues. It is not merely a matter of whether
the post office gives people a decent service in the narrow sense of
whether it sells stamps efficiently. The post office has a recognised
social role in termsof the viability of communities and of
vulnerable consumers, which I understood to be a significant part of
its remit. That certainly comes into the social arena. Could the
Minister to confirm whether he now sees the NCC as having a narrower
role in that regard because that would raise some serious concerns for
us? Where will that missing piece of activityrepresentation and
advocacygo if it does not fall within the remit of the
NCC?
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
I hesitate to point out that the hon. Lady
has tabled an amendment later in the Bill to say that the new NCC
should report in the wider public interest because I may be accused by
the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford of not wanting to discuss
the issue now. I am not running away from any debate, but she has
tabled an amendment specifically on this issue. My hon. Friend the
Member for Ealing, North was saying that there is a particular role for
the new NCC, there is a role for Postwatch and we are not moving away
from that. It has strong consumer interests. It has independence of
action in terms of seeking information and evidence and publishing
reports.
I must tell
the hon. Lady that we oppose her amendment, which I am sure will come
as no surprise to her, because accepting it would take the NCC into the
territory where my hon. Friend says it does not have a role. It is not
a social policy think tank, it is there to be the advocate and champion
for consumers. If it is in the consumer interest, which may well be
very wide, it has a role and it will be up to it to determine what its
work programme should be and what it wants to publish. But to give it
the role described in the hon. Ladys amendment would go too
far.
Mr.
Ellwood:
It is interesting that the hon. Member for
Ealing, North raised this issue. The council is the custodian for the
consumer and so its voice must be listened to. Our concern is how far
that voice will be listened to. On the question of accountability and
independence, will the chairman of the council be allowed to be a
signed-up many of any political
party?
Jim
Fitzpatrick:
There are tried and tested arrangements that
have public confidence in terms of the appointments of individuals to
positions such as this. I have no reason to think that there will not
be full public confidence in whoever is appointed in due
course.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Clause
16
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
17
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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