Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, for tabling this amendment. I again apologise to your Lordships’ House that I was not able to speak to it at an earlier stage as I was speaking at a conference in Nottingham. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will well know that for six years since 2000, when he was a Minister responsible for rural matters, I have expressed my concerns about the future of post offices. I share the concerns that have been expressed on that issue. Part of the Bill is concerned with redress. Consumers want things to go right. Today, through no fault of the railway company concerned, I had the most horrendous journey getting here. A fire on a freight train outside Berwick totally blocked the line and it will be blocked for 24 hours due to the nature of the cargo on that train. I should say in fairness to the railway company that it was very good and made arrangements for some passengers to be transported via the west coast line. In that context it is important that we do not water down the Bill’s new provisions. I am particularly concerned about the part that concerns the postal services. I have made various rail journeys back and forth to Scotland. I had a difficult journey going up on Sunday as I was delayed three times, which was the railway company’s fault. However, the second occasion on which I experienced difficulty was certainly not its fault. The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, made various points on post offices, but I want to comment on the situation from a slightly broader perspective. As the practice on Report is to examine Ministers’ responses, I want to highlight the Minister’s response and to explore whether we are happy with it and therefore confident about where it will take us in the future. As the Minister indicated clearly in Grand Committee: "““Postal services consumers will also benefit from the introduction of redress schemes””." But we want to ensure that we enhance, and certainly do not detract from, the service that is offered by the new consumer council. The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, touched on the number of post offices that are likely to close. I share his concern. The Minister also stated in Grand Committee that, "““99 per cent of the population will be within three miles of an outlet””.—[Official Report, 9/1/07; col. GC 60.];" that is, a post office outlet. However, in order to achieve that percentage, are not some of the most rural and remote post office outlets more likely to be closed in the future cuts so that the Government can achieve their target of having 99 per cent of people living within three miles of an outlet? Having travelled down through the country today, I am aware that some very remote areas will be in great jeopardy of losing their outlets. Will the Minister clarify the response that he gave in Committee as I do not think that he responded to that point? My next point was raised by colleagues. How will the Government ensure that the most vulnerable people in the remotest areas who have the greatest difficulty accessing these outlets will continue to be able to do so? I take up the point made about the squeeze on the Post Office bank card, which, as we have heard, has been overturned temporarily. But who will fight that corner in the longer term? I understand that the National Consumer Council will deal only with complaints; it will not set strategy. Perhaps the Minister can answer my earlier question in that regard. I refer him to the setting up of the Commission for Rural Communities. When that announcement was made I assumed that the Commission for Rural Communities would be the watchdog that would ensure that the rural voice and people’s concerns about the closure of post offices were heard. I was desperately disappointed that that was not heard in the national press. I am trying to get the Minister to respond to some of the comments he made in Committee. I ask him to clarify whether the council is going to deal just with an individual complaint or whether it will be able to look over the longer term at the repercussions of government decisions and the Royal Mail’s decisions on squeezing post offices. Having read carefully through the Committee stage, that is not at all clear. I seek clarification from the Minister on those points which were debated in Committee but not clarified to my satisfaction. I am sorry that I was not here to raise the matter at the time.