Postal Services Bill

My Lords, we have reached this amendment slightly quicker than I had thought we would. Although the amendment looks complicated, it is, in essence, an amendment to probe how the Government intend to fulfil the commitment made in the paper to which I previously referred—and to which the noble Baroness referred twice—that they will maintain a network of approximately the present size. The noble Baroness stated that even more precisely in her reply to my noble friend Lord Lea. I have tabled the amendment from the perspective that my previous organisation, Consumer Focus, and its predecessor, Postwatch, have been through two alleged rationalisations of the post office network, the first of which was based on no objective criteria at all. It worked from where sub-postmasters were finding it difficult to maintain a post office, were retiring, or had some other reason for not wanting to continue. The second round of rationalisation worked on substantial and clear issues of access that were specified in crude distance terms, but nevertheless gave rationality to the assessment of whether one post office or another should change. I must say, having inherited this situation at three-quarters of the way through, that I found it difficult for a consumer organisation to be forced to choose between the post offices in any particular town. Nevertheless, the criteria against which we operated— access to post offices among different populations, distance to travel to a post office, and so on—are reproduced in the paper from which I quoted earlier, but which I unfortunately gave to Hansard for verification. However, the document includes a table that sets out the current criteria. My concerns are twofold. Those criteria would arithmetically allow for a network that is significantly smaller, particularly in towns and suburbs, than the current network, and I therefore need to square the assurance given by the Government that they are looking for, and are in effect subsidising for the next few years a network at its current size, with the fact that theoretically, using the same criteria, they could reduce it to a size of between 7,000 and 8,000. I hope that the Government reaffirm their commitment to retaining a network of the current size. The calculations in proposed new subsection (1) in the amendment, according to my former colleagues in Consumer Focus—I did not do the arithmetic—would sustain a network of roughly the present size. In other words, the first four criteria are considerably more stringent than those used in the previous round of rationalisation and specified in the Government’s document on the future of the network. This would not mean that every post office would need to remain open. There would obviously be temporary closures and what the Post Office somewhat euphemistically calls business-as-usual closures. There would also be movements of sites within particular areas. However, one would arrive at roughly the same number of post offices, were these criteria to be followed. It would be interesting to know whether the Government intend to tighten up the criteria or to add different criteria that would produce figures similar to those in the amendment, or whether their commitment to the current size of the network is irrespective of particular criteria because they envisage that the moves they claim to be making to improve the volume of post offices’ business—to sustain and inculcate a different sense of purpose through mutualisation—will mean that we will end up with a network of roughly the current size. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, is once more in his place. When we were discussing the IBA, he raised a pertinent question as to whether any failure to commit to the IBA—and, I would add, to direct other government work to the post office network; an earlier debate today demonstrated that we were moving away from that—threatens the Government’s commitment to the size of the network. There is a circle to be squared, and I am not entirely clear how the Government intend to square it. One option would be to reassure consumers, sub-postmasters and the staff of the post office network that the criteria would be tighter. Another option would be a more detailed way of reassessing those criteria. In fact, proposed new subsections (3) to (6) in the amendment would allow the Government systematically to assess the criteria of access and the nature of services provided. Another dimension that has been mentioned is that part of Post Office Ltd’s plan is to reduce the range of services provided in some post offices. There was the experiment of Post Office essentials outlets that provided a reduced range of services. Some have worked and some have not. That is not necessarily entirely consistent with the government commitment to maintain the network broadly as it is, but it may mean that different gradations of post office outlets appear within the total. It would also be useful to know about that. Although I do not expect the Government to accept the amendment, it gives them options in adopting criteria that would sustain more or less the present network or having a process whereby they redefined the criteria for access and the services provided. It would be useful to know what the Government’s strategy was in this respect. Obviously, we take great heart from the reassurance that the present network will remain in place, but the question of how that will happen and how we square that with certain other developments that were referred to earlier remains. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s comments. I beg to move.