Postal Services Bill

Unfortunately, I have to leave the debate early, because I have to attend the European Scrutiny Committee at 2 o'clock. First, the new clause attempts to ameliorate the impact on Royal Mail and particularly the post office network of what is probably one of the nastiest things that the Government will ever do to the people of the UK. The terrible act of putting up tuition fees up to £9,000 will damage a number of people, and will probably bring about the demise of the Liberal Democrat party, but the Bill attacks the fundamental structures of society, because it will bring about the closure of a vast number of post offices. Strong arguments were made—and I made them—every time that the previous Government went through another retooling of the post office network at huge cost. The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) tried to say that Government money set aside for the post office network over the next four years will be somehow be used to keep post offices open. If we look at the amount of money spent by the previous Government paying postmasters and paying for redundancies in the Royal Mail and the post office network when it closed in many of the communities that I and all of us represent, it is clear that the money will go in that direction. One reason why it will go in that direction is that the inter-business agreement will not be sustained in a privatised environment. Let us look at former privatisations and see what happened to those who supplied services to BT. Let us look at what is happening now, when everyone is screaming about the cost of domestic fuel being charged by the six large energy providers—a cartel by any other name, although the providers say that it is just imperfect competition. It is the market. People are told, ““Sorry, it is the market that is causing you to be unable to heat your homes.”” It is the market that will cause post offices and sub-post offices to close. It is clear that although Royal Mail management says that it is proud of the present Royal Mail/Post Office arrangement, the market will drive the management to look for cheaper ways of doing things. The example that I always use is what happened in the case of TV licensing. When the television licensing authority wanted to continue to use the post office and sub-post office network to sell its products, the Post Office said, ““That's fine. First, you'll pay us a million pounds. In addition to that, you will obviously pay for every transaction.”” That is what killed the deal—the £1 million that Royal Mail, through Post Office Ltd, wanted to get into its coffers, not the cost of transactions at sub-post offices, and the contract went to PayPoint. That will happen again and again, because Royal Mail will look at what it gets for its money and will ask whether anyone else will offer the same service. PayPoint is publicly saying that it wants to take over the monopoly of the Post Office for delivering the services that the Post Office delivers now for Royal Mail and for Government Departments, and it will win because it will undercut. It will loss-lead to do so, as it has said so in its business plan. That will threaten what is at present one third of the revenue—£343 million per annum—going to the post office network from Royal Mail. Of that, £240 million is paid to the sub-postmasters. If they are not getting paid their money, they will not run the service.