Postal Services Bill

I support new—cross-party—clause 2 as part of a damage limitation exercise in opposition to this Bill to privatise Royal Mail, and in order to protect Royal Mail, which Moya Greene, its new chief executive, says provides one of the most excellent services in the world. I, like many colleagues, have major concerns that the Bill's proposal to separate Post Office Ltd and Royal Mail will lead to significant changes in arrangements between the two entities—two that are currently one. My Opposition colleagues and I are not the only ones to have said that; the postmasters, Royal Mail workers and managers whom I met in my constituency over Christmas reiterated it. There is no known international precedent for separating a national mail operator from its retail arm, and the changes will be detrimental to post offices in my constituency and to my constituents, their customers. The changes are likely to lead to Post Office Ltd no longer being treated as a preferred and reliable in-house provider by Royal Mail. Instead, I fear that the Post Office will be seen no differently from any other supplier, with the long, shared history between the two companies overlooked and the public's wishes for a good, complementary service disregarded. As we have heard, post offices—especially small rural post offices in villages across the country and in my constituency—are heavily dependent on Royal Mail business for income and attracting customer visits to their premises. In the same area, our local post offices provide a convenient and trusted location to carry out Royal Mail transactions both for the general public and for our local small businesses. Many of those post offices act as village shops and sell convenience goods, groceries, sweets and newspapers. However, many of those businesses' activities are unviable on their own without post office activity underpinning them. The existence of the business agreement is also important to sub-postmasters when they deal with their banks. The banks view the agreement as a guarantee of income that can be considered as collateral for lending to post offices and sub-postmasters. An unconditional clause must therefore be put in any legislation stating that such a mandatory contract between Post Office Ltd and the Royal Mail must be put in place if there has to be any separation. However, Liberal Democrat and Conservative pleas on that are in opposition to the comments of the Lib Dem Minister, who said in Committee:"““if you actually wrote that there should be a contract between two companies that are going to be separate companies into law, I think that would be subject to serious legal challenge.””––[Official Report, Postal Services Public Bill Committee, 11 November 2010; c. 123, Q244.]" To date, the Minister still has not provided any evidence for that position. I strongly believe that there must be a commitment from Ministers that the full range of Government services that can be delivered via local post offices will be secured. The Government must proactively look at a range of attractive new services and post office business streams. Some post office services have already been outsourced to PayPoint, as was reported in the press recently. In addition, the coalition's decision not to pursue a post bank is another example of the Government ignoring opportunities for the post office and the public. A mutualised post office with a bank would be an excellent community asset and would provide financial sustainability for post offices. The other arguments we have heard today about commercial necessity and banks withdrawing from localities and using post offices for their financial services tie in with the ongoing arrangements that post offices are developing.