Postal Services Bill

My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments to Clause 11 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. I thank him for telling me in advance that he is not going to press them tonight and I hope that my response will at least reassure him. Amendment 40 seeks to oblige the Post Office to report against its compliance with the access criteria at a UK level and also in each of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The access criteria are national criteria. Five of the six of them apply across the entire United Kingdom but they recognise the country’s diversity by including individual protections for urban, urban deprived, rural and remote rural locations. The sixth criterion—for 95 per cent of the population in each postcode district, such as BA2 or GU27, to be within six miles of a post office—applies to each and every one of the nearly 2,800 postcode districts in the UK. This provides a very real guarantee that post offices will be broadly spread and accessible to communities in every corner of the United Kingdom. I reassure the noble Lord that the annual network report will include details of the Post Office’s compliance with the criteria. Indeed, such reporting is already done. Your Lordships will recall that last year’s Postcomm network report showed that the Post Office continues comfortably to exceed the access criteria. It is most upsetting to have the Opposition Chief Whip sitting here with me. I want that noted.