Postal Services Bill

My Lords, I hope that reflection can be mutual. Then, when we come to Report stage, we will see if there has been any degree of accommodation of what is widely felt in the House. One of the problems of the relationship in the new model between the Post Office and what are currently called sub-postmasters is that there is currently little transparency over what that relationship is. My noble friend Lord Young put a question to which I may have missed the answer. Is it not the case that there is widespread talk that it will be based on a straight commission basis rather than a minimum for the year, which is a sort of salary? The sub-postmasters in thinly populated areas are not dinosaurs. Generally, their surname probably is Patel and they are fairly sharp businesspeople, but they do have these problems. They are the heart and soul of the community, along with the school, the church, the cricket ground and whatever. That is life. I am glad that the noble Baroness has today started to tease out, I hope, the ambiguities of her repeated statement that ““we have no programme of closures””. Well, of course we are not talking about a programme of closures of sub-post offices; it is not the Government who will do that. Let me put it as kindly as I can: that is not the answer to the question. We are trying to see the circumstances in which there could be any protection, against any criteria, when a community sees a post office about to close. There are generalisations about the model, and how it will be wonderfully sparkling and new. There is a broadly continuous counter in the post office in the shop I go into. Two out of the four staff have the necessary ““competences”” to deal with the post office side, and will also sell you a lettuce or half a dozen eggs. I may sound like a dinosaur for a minute, but in what sense does that need to be modernised? I am very grateful for the support that we have received from the Cross Benches, which suggests to me that the next step should be to see whether there can be something to reassure the many sub-postmasters. I know that they are a disparate group. Having been a trade union official for 35 years, I am not unfamiliar with that. We are trying to look at it from a local perspective, in the spirit of the big society; how about that as a conciliatory way to end? On this occasion, therefore, I hope that there can be further consideration before Report. Unless there is, I predict that colleagues will wish to press the point further and, maybe, divide the House at that stage. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 24EA withdrawn. Clause 12 agreed. Clauses 13 to 15 agreed.