Postal Services Bill

My Lords, as we have scrutinised this Bill, many noble Lords have stressed the crucial importance of maintaining the link between Royal Mail and the post office network. We have urged the signing of a new 10-year interbusiness agreement of long enough duration to give a sense of security to the people who run our post offices and the many members of the public and businesses that rely on them. The Government have made helpful moves in providing the details for the IBA to be included in the report to Parliament. The Minister has said that she expects a new IBA in the spring and that she hopes that the agreement might extend to 10 years or more. That is good news. Royal Mail work accounts for the largest single stream of income for post offices, about a third, but government services are also very important. They account for more than 25 per cent of post office income; they used to account for more than 40 per cent. I fully understand the difficulties facing the Government. It would have been wrong to prevent pensioners receiving their pension direct into their bank account if they so wished. It would be wrong to prevent the public from applying for licences by internet if they so wished. We understand the constraints of European competition law. So the Government should be realistic. They should not raise hopes only for them to be dashed and they should turn warm words into practical projections and plans. But when it comes to converting fine intentions into actual work, the results have been disappointing. The document produced by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in November 2010, Securing The Post Office Network In The Digital Age, contains welcome words. It boldly declares: "““We want to see the Post Office become a genuine Front Office for Government at both the national and local level … acting as a natural home for the delivery of face-to-face government services and helping citizens interact with Government online””." Those are wonderful words, but the document is in truth a little thin on this particular subject. There are promises of pilots and one or two isolated examples. Indeed, Mr Billy Hayes of the Communication Workers Union described the Government as being as ““joined up as spaghetti”” in this respect, with different government departments each adopting a different approach. The first practical test that came along was the DWP contract for so-called green giros, which are paid to an estimated 250,000 to 350,000 people on benefits or pensions who do not have a bank account or card account. In contrast to the record of my noble friend Lord Mandelson in suspending the bidding for the post office card account, the one actual decision that the Government made was to take away from post offices the multi-million pound contract to process so-called green giros. I suspect that that is a bigger blow to sub-post offices because of the added footfall that it brings than it is to Post Office Ltd as a whole, but it was a serious setback to the confidence of sub-postmasters. But the Minister for postal services was clear when he said that: "““BIS has no intention of subsidising DWP and I am sure DWP has no intention of subsidising BIS. I would simply say that if new services are put forward by any Government Department, unless there are issues that prevent a competitive procurement, those Whitehall Departments have to go through a proper procurement process and Post Office Ltd would have to compete with them””.—[Official Report, Commons, Postal Services Bill Committee, 23/11/10; col. 349.]" It is the usual stance of other departments and local councils, especially at a time of cuts of 20 per cent or more, to concentrate more on saving money, so there are practical steps that can be made. Injection of modern technology at post office counters, for example, could benefit from the comprehensive spending review funding; then there is the imaginative use of the post office as a central and trusted point in community life. There are deadlines for decisions on procurement and projections that need to be made. The views that I have expressed are views shared and supported perhaps even more strongly by the National Federation of SubPostmasters. This amendment is intended to concentrate minds and encourage a strategic approach to the future of government services provided through post offices. It is an important addition to the call for a long-term interbusiness agreement, on which the futures of many of our post offices hang. The Government will be judged on this issue, to quote the words of the Suffragettes, through deeds not words. I beg to move.