Postal Services Bill

My Lords, I sympathise with these amendments. They reflect a number of concerns that those of us who spoke at Second Reading raised. I was certainly one of those as far as mutualisation was concerned. I had a great deal of sympathy, too, for the concept of banking in local post offices, but that has clearly been firmly ruled out by the Government. That does not mean, however, that they should not be thinking of ways in which they could satisfy the concerns. There should be some return to Parliament for an assurance that the route down which the Government are going will be in the best interests of those concerned. I thought the comments made by my noble friend Lord Cameron about rural areas were extremely important. The post offices are important for the sustainability of those local areas. I hope that when the Minister replies she will feel able to give more assurance than we have had so far on this issue. I commend the amount of money available and the way in which the Government have thought through this Bill in order for it to be sustainable for the future. However, despite all the money—we will no doubt hear details after the Budget of other ways in which the Post Office and postal services will be helped—it would be in everyone’s interest if the Minister could say that there will be a hard look at reassurance on some of the many important points that have been made in this group of amendments.