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Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 19:
- Page 122, line 39, leave out ("publish") and insert ("include").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with Amendment No. 19 I should like to speak also to Amendments Nos. 20 and 21. Paragraph 6 of Schedule 2 sets out the annual reporting obligations of the Consumer Council. The report is made to the Secretary of State, who subsequently lays it before Parliament. The council is responsible for wider publication. Consistent with the disclosure provisions in other parts of the Bill, the paragraph prevents the council from publishing certain types of information as part of the annual report unless certain conditions are met. The impression that the current wording gives, however, is that there may be a difference between the report as it is made to the Secretary of State and the report which is eventually published, which is not the intention. They are one and the same. The report which is made to the Secretary of State and laid before Parliament is itself a public document. The issue is one of excluding certain types of information from the report in the first place rather than removing information subsequently prior to publication; in other words, we do not want power to doctor the council's report. These amendments clarify the position. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendments Nos. 20 and 21:
- Page 122, line 43, leave out from ("be") to end of line 44 and insert ("included in the report if--
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Schedule to be substituted for Schedule 6 to the 1989 Act]:
Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 22:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment was requested by the electricity industry for safety reasons. The request was made only recently, just before Report stage, and the amendment was not therefore ready to be brought before the House at that stage. Noble Lords may recall that on Report I announced the Government's intention to bring forward an amendment in this area, and that is the amendment I should now like to discuss.
The purpose of the amendment is to allow licensed distributors access to any premises where they have line or plant which requires replacement, repair or alteration of some kind. This mirrors rights presently held by the public electricity suppliers. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 6 [Minor and consequential amendments]:
Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendments Nos. 23 and 24:
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Schedule 7 [Transitional provisions and savings]:
Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendments Nos. 25:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I speak also to Amendment No. 26. These minor drafting amendments relate to the timing of transfer and licensing schemes coming into effect. They make clear that it will be possible for both licensing and transfer schemes in relation to different suppliers to come into effect on different dates, thus achieving flexibility in implementation, which has been a key objective in developing these technical provisions.
That is what we intended, but following discussion with the electricity industry, we have agreed that the current drafting could be improved to clarify this, which is what these amendments do. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 26:
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.--(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons with amendments.
Lord Carter: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Postal Services Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Clause 4 [Provision of a universal postal service: meaning]:
The Minister for Science, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville) moved Amendment No. 1:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving the amendment, I speak also to Amendments Nos. 3, 11 and 15 to 19. These are drafting amendments intended to tidy up or clarify the Bill. Amendment No. 1 is a drafting amendment to the definition of a universal postal service. It is intended to clarify that Clause 4(1)(b) is a separate obligation which goes wider than Clause 4(1)(a). The effect of the amendment is that a
Amendment No. 3 is a drafting amendment to the exceptions from Clause 13(6) contained in subsection (7). Subsection (6) provides that, subject to subsection (7), no action shall lie or in Scotland be competent in respect of a contravention by a licence holder of a condition of his licence. Subsection (7) sets out exceptions to this. The Government's intention with these provisions is to prevent any action for breach of a condition (other than by enforcement notice or financial penalty under the provisions of this part of the Bill) but without prejudice to any other right of action which could arise under general law in relation to the underlying act or omission. Amendment No. 3 amends the wording of the exception at subsection (1)(a) to ensure that these other rights of action remain available where there is an act or omission which takes place in the course of doing anything to which the condition relates. Depending on the terms of the licence, this could go beyond the provision of letters or a universal postal service.
Amendment No. 11 is a simple drafting amendment correcting an error in the existing text by replacing the reference to "any other" with "a" foreign administration.
Amendments Nos. 15, 16, 17 and 18 together clarify the definition of a "letter" for the purposes of this Bill. First, they put beyond any doubt that "letter" does not include an electronic communication. Amendment No. 18 provides that the reference to a letter being conveyed and delivered "otherwise than electronically" (itself inserted by Amendment No. 15 into the definition of "letter" in Clause 125(1)) is a reference to a communication to be conveyed and delivered otherwise than by means of a telecommunications system (within the meaning of the Telecommunications Act 1984) or by other means while in electronic form. This means that a letter on a disk sent by post will be a postal packet for the purposes of this Bill but will not be a letter. Secondly, they spell out that a postal packet containing a letter is a letter. Thirdly, they allow a communication to satisfy the definition of letter even where the communication is addressed to a person and not an address.
As intended in the existing definition of a letter, hybrid mail services remain caught within the definition of a letter only when the communication is not being conveyed or delivered electronically. Postal operators will, of course, remain free to offer hybrid mail services so long as they operate either outside the licensed area or, if they are operating within the licensed area, they have a licence to do so for that part of the service where communications are conveyed or delivered otherwise than electronically.
Amendment No. 19 is a minor consequential amendment to the list of expressions in Clause 126. It extends the reference to the meaning of letter to include the new provisions on the meaning of
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, we thank the Minister for the change from "the" to "a" which we believe meets in some way the amendment we tabled on Report.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville moved Amendment No. 2:
The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment, I speak also to Amendment No. 20.
These are technical amendments. The effect of Amendment No. 2 is to ensure that it will be possible to identify a universal service provider or providers in the United Kingdom for the purposes of the Bill in the event that the current requirement to notify the Commission of their identity under the Postal Services Directive lapses.
Article 4 of the directive requires each member state to notify the European Commission of the identity of its universal service postal provider or providers. Clause 4 of the Bill is drafted in this context. Subsection (3) of Clause 4 sets out the meaning of a universal service provider for the purposes of the Bill. It provides that any person whose identity is notified by the Secretary of State to the European Commission as a person providing a universal service (or part of a universal service) within the UK (in accordance with Article 4 of the Postal Services Directive) and who has been served with a notice of that fact by the Secretary of State is to be taken to be a universal service provider for the purposes of the Bill.
We see no problem with this construction for the foreseeable future. However, Article 27 of the directive provides that the provisions of the directive (with the exception of Article 26) shall apply only until December 2004 unless otherwise decided in accordance with Article 7(3). Article 7(3) concerns further provisions for the completion of the internal market of postal services. There is, therefore, the possibility that Article 4 of the directive could lapse.
We expect that it is unlikely that this provision of the directive would lapse without being replaced by some further Community provision. But we cannot rule it out entirely. Given the importance attached in the Bill to the concept of a universal service provider, we consider that it is sensible to provide on its face for a universal service provider to be capable of being identified in the unlikely event that the relevant provisions of the directive lapse.
Amendment No. 20 is a minor consequential amendment to the list of expressions in Clause 126. It extends the reference to universal service provider to include the new provisions at Clause 4, identifying a universal service provider in the event of the lapse of an EU directive--the subject of Amendment No. 2. I beg to move.
(a) that individual or body has consented to its inclusion;").
Page 123, line 1, leave out ("disclose") and insert ("include").
Page 130, line 13, leave out ("to which he is maintaining a connection").
Page 135, line 1, after ("23,") insert ("30A,").
Page 138, line 31, leave out ("section 32, section") and insert ("27A, 32,").
Page 140, line 33, leave out from ("effect") to ("as") in line 35.
Page 141, line 8, leave out from ("that") to end of line 9.
5.13 p.m.
Page 2, line 32, leave out ("the") and insert ("a").
Page 3, line 5, at end insert--
("(3A) If no-one falls within subsection (3) because there is no Community obligation to notify the European Commission of the identity of a person providing a universal postal service or a part of such a service in the United Kingdom, references in this Act to a universal service provider shall be construed as references to any person who is treated by the Secretary of State as a universal service provider for the purposes of this Act and on whom the Secretary of State has served a notice informing him of that fact.").
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