POSTAL SERVICES (LONDON)

HC Deb 13 July 1979 vol 970 cc985-96

Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Berry.]

4.20 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Baker (St. Marylebone)

I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise on this occasion the question of postal services in London. I last raised the matter in an Adjournment debate about seven years ago when postal deliveries in London had reached, such a grave condition that I felt it necessary to raise the matter on the Floor of the House. I feel the same again today.

The depressing factor is that the postal services were bad seven years ago, but they are even worse today. In spite of the passing of those years there has been no improvement. I know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that as you live in London and are a London Member you will agree that the postal services are poor and have not improved.

For the fourth time this year, on 26 June, the chairman of the Post Office asked the public to post only essential letters. That, of course, is an absurdity because virtually all letters posted are essential, otherwise people would not go to the trouble of posting them. That showed the deplorable service that prevails. In central London today I understand that the North London district office has again asked people living there not to post letters because they will be unable to deliver them. A fortnight ago the delay in second-class post in London was between seven and 10 days. One knows perfectly well from one's constituents and from living in London oneself that if one wants letters to arrive promptly the only answer is to post them first class.

I have had many complaints from my constituents and from many of the businesses in my constituency. That constituency contains one of the largest postal sorting offices, which is situated in Rath-bone Place. It employs more than 2,500 people, and I regret that a lot of the delays centre on this large sorting office and on the other large sorting offices in central London, including Mount Pleasant.

How bad is the service? That can best be determined by considering what hap- pens overseas. In France postal workers handle twice as much mail as their British counterparts. The figure for the American postal worker is about four times as much. The productivity of the Post Office is steadily declining, and over the last seven years, since I last raised this matter in the House, it has probably declined by about 10 per cent.

The figures speak for themselves. In 1970–71 there were about 176,000 postal workers, handling 11.4 billion letters. Now there are about 10,000 fewer postal workers, handling 9 billion letters. The postal staff has therefore remained much the same—there has been a slight reduction—but there has been a 2.5 billion drop in the number of letters handled. The only thing that is going up in the Post Office is the amount of time it takes a letter to go from the pillar-box to the letter-box.

What is wrong? The Union of Post Office Workers says that there is a considerable staff shortage, amounting to about 10,000 postmen. Certainly There is a shortage of about 20 to 25 per cent. in Rathbone Place. But is the answer to recruit more, because if more are recruited with a declining volume of mail, productivity will get worse? Some independent investigators have said that in their view the Post Office is now overmanned to the extent of 30,000 employees.

What should be done, therefore? There are several possibilities. First, the management in the Post Office should be allowed to manage. If one talks to senior or middle management in the Post Office one soon realises that morale is very low because over the years its ability and capacity to manage has been undermined. It is said that the board of the Post Office is paid to manage the business, but that Mr. Tom Jackson actually does it for the board. One of the most important requirements is to restore the morale of management in the Post Office and to give it the confidence to exert its authority as management.

The second change that should be made—this is part of a package of measures that was agreed earlier in the year between the management of the Post Office and the Union of Post Office Workers—is to implement the agreement to enable casual staff to help out with the summer and winter peaks and the daily peak. In my constituency the great peak each day is between 4 o'clock and 6 o'clock in the evening, when about 90 per cent. of all postings and mailings in the W1 district take place. An enormous avalanche of mail is received each night. That happens in the other large district offices as well. However, the Post Office workers have rejected the proposal to employ casual or part-time staff, although the management was even prepared to employ Post Office pensioners.

Why did Post Office workers say " No "? It is fairly clear that they want to arrange for themselves substantial amounts of overtime.

The other thing that should be done as part of the package of efficiency—this was agreed between the union and the management, although the workers threw it out—is to measure the volume of mail or the flow of letters. If that were done, we would know how many letters are being handled at each district sorting office. However, management is denied that. The Post Office workers are saying, in effect, " We do not want you to know what we do."

The Carter report on the Post Office was published about 18 months ago. On measuring the flow of mail the Carter report stated: it is a nonsense to pretend that it is possible to manage a sorting office at all … without information about how much traffic is being handled during any particular hour, day or week, since the manager concerned has no means of tailoring the number of staff to volume of traffic if he does not know what the volume of traffic is. That is one of the changes that should be introduced.

It is clear that in certain large offices the mechanisation of the handling of mail has been slowed down deliberately. There is an agreement that mechanical handling machines should be introduced. I am told that there is such a machine at the district office at Whitechapel. It has been installed since 1973 and has never been used. The capital cost of that machine, together with interest charges, amounts now to more than £1 million. That is an extraordinary state of affairs.

We have a declining service and a work force that says that it needs more recruits. However, it is a work force that is not prepared to co-operate with management in various productivity improvements.

Last, but not least, industrial relations within the Post Office have to be considered. The principle seems to be—I do not dissent from it—that there should be consultation. However, consultation is defined in the Post Office as " agreement ". If there is no agreement, nothing happens. I ask my hon. Friend what he thinks the seven part-time worker directors of the Post Office are doing. Has he talked to them about these problems? Has he consulted them? Has he asked them how they think they could contribute to dealing with manning and productivity problems?

At the end of the day we must not overlook the fact that it is the customers who count. In London we are used to being asked not to post letters on particular days. Scant regard is given to customer requirements. It was a grave mistake to do away with Sunday postings. Many people liked to write their letters over the weekend, possibly pay a few bills, and to post on a Sunday letters that had a chance of being delivered on the Monday. That service is denied to everyone in London unless he goes to the Trafalgar Square post office. Very few people live close enough to Trafalgar Square to make it worth while to take the trouble of going there on a Sunday. The ending of Sunday postings was typical as it was something that was just done.Customer requirements seem to come low in pecking order when the Post Office considers what it should be doing.

This is not a complaint from a Conservative Member of Parliament. We hear these complaints from hon. Members on both sides, because their constituents get at them. There was an article on the subject in the New Statesman a week ago. That magazine on the whole does not support Conservative attitudes and policies. The article said: The Post Office resembles nothing so much as a large dinosaur which seems to have forgotten how to perform several basic bodily functions and to which the mortal blow would be an act of mercy. It is fair to say that the writers were not prepared to give the mortal blow. None the less, the argument is accepted broadly on both sides of the House.

About a fortnight ago my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry, in making a statement on the Post Office, said that he was examining the postal monopoly. He is right to do so. A public monopoly is a privilege. The Post Office postal monopoly is a considerable privilege. It can be granted only if the public interest benefits at the end of the day. Such a public monopoly implies two things—service and accountability. The service is poor. To whom is the Post Office accountable? Is it accountable to the various consumer groups that look after the consumer in the Post Office? I do not believe that. Is it accountable to the consumer? I do not believe so. Is it accountable to management? I certainly do not believe that.

The Post Office management seems to be hamstrung wherever it turns. It seems to be accountable only to the Union of Post Office Workers. I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend is undertaking inquiries into the postal monopoly. I hope that the studies he has put in hand will be published when they are completed. I can see no reason why they should not be published. In fact, the more information that is available to the general public about the operation of a nationalised industry, which is a monopoly, the better.

There is a positive virtue and advantage in opening up the operations of the Post Office so that more people know exactly what is happening. It is the ordinary members of the British public who are having to pay for this service—a service that is declining. Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend will publish the report.

I have no idea whether it is feasible to change the postal monopoly of the Post Office. I know, first, that where a monopoly does not exist—namely, the transmission of parcels—the service is reasonably efficient. I have few complaints about the delivery of parcels, as there is competition between two or three different carriers. Indeed, the parcels side of the Post Office breaks about even. That seems to give prima facie evidence for the belief that where there is competition the service improves.

The monopoly is being infringed every day. If we drive through central London and my constituency with a radio on in the car, we find that from time to time the radio reception is blocked as a result of motor cyclists operating two-way radios. They are part of the growing number of couriers taking parcels, letters and messages from one business house to another. The business houses in London find that such services are more efficient.

I hope that the Minister will give an assurance that the efficiency of the Post Office will improve under this Government. After all, the Government are ultimately responsible for the operation of the monopoly. Indeed, they should be the champions of consumer interest in this matter. First, I hope that the reports that my right hon. Friend has put in hand will be published, or, if not, that a fuller inquiry will take place into the operations of the Post Office. Secondly, I hope that before the House rises in a fortnight or so my right hon. Friend will be able to make a statement to the House about the Government's reaction to the Carter committee.

The Carter committee reported 18 months ago on several matters affecting both sides of the Post Office. One of its recommendations was that the Post Office should be split into two parts, the telecommunications side and the postal side. I have been in favour of this for a very long time.

I was a member of the Standing Committee in the late 1960s when the Post Office, which had hitherto been a Government Department, was turned into a nationalised industry. Several of us in the Committee in 1969 moved amendments seeking to divide the Post Office, because it seemed to us to be sensible to separate the postal services from the telecommunications. Telecommunications was a capital-intensive business, expanding and developing. The postal side was a labour-intensive business in a contracting area of activity. They are very dissimilar bodies.

That argument was opposed by the then Postmaster-General—one John Stonehouse—and it has been opposed fairly regularly since, but the balance of opinion is now in favour of dividing the Post Office, so that there is a telecommunications side which is quite separate from the postal side. I do not believe that the progress of the telecommunications side, which is essential for our developing economy, should be held back by being linked with a postal side that needs a complete overhaul.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will appreciate that I raise this matter not on grounds of doctrine but because of the avalanche of complaints that I have had from my constituents and from firms in my constituency who are very fed up, particularly this year, with the declining service. Regrettably, they feel that each time there is a crisis there is a special weekend of overwork, and that the problem is dealt with for a short time and then builds up again. The Post Office must examine the fundamental running of its business in order to see how the service can be made efficient in the long term.

4.37 pm

The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Michael Marshall)

The whole House will be indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker) for raising what I am sure is a very timely and important topic of great public interest. I listened with particular care to what he said. I think that the whole House recognises that his interest in this matter goes back a very long way, as he has indicated.

The standard of the postal service affects us all, whether in personal or business life, and I acknowledge the serious effect that a decline in standards can have. My hon. Friend has referred to the volume of complaints that he receives. As one of the Ministers responsible for the Post Office, I see perhaps an even greater volume of mail than his own. I see the end product of many hon. Members' complaints in these matters, and I recognise the nature and scope of the complaints at the present time.

Part of the problem that any Minister faces is that many of the matters referred to are essentially operational details and, while I accept much of the spirit of what my hon. Friend said, I am sure that he will understand the difficulty of reconciling the role of the Government—and, indeed, of a nationalised industry—with making sure that management is free to manage. It was part of the four-point package to which my hon. Friend so sensibly referred.

Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. With regard to Post Office management managing, I and many others have had brought to our attention by constituents and others the desire of many people to have new Post Office equipment put into their houses. I refer to such things as modifications to wiring. The amount of time taken for this to be done has been appalling. The management has not been managing. Will my hon. Friend say whether he is prepared to put a lot of this work out to private enterprise?

Mr. Marshall

My hon. Friend will recognise that he has raised a wider matter, which goes beyond the postal service. But we are considering these matters carefully within the overall framework of reviews which are now in hand, and I hope to make that clear as I proceed with my speech.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out the operational position in his statement on 2 July, but it may help if I bring hon. Members up to date on the position as now reported to me by the Post Office. My hon. Friend's concern has been primarily with London, but the House might find it helpful to know that in the country as a whole there were on 20 June, 40 million items of mail on hand. By 2 July this had been reduced to 29 million and by 9 July to 21 million. About two-thirds of the items on hand were in the London area.

The delay to first-class mail in many parts of London, the South-East and the Midlands is about one day. Outside these areas, services in many places are getting back to normal. But for second-class mail, the situation is more acute. The delay is about three days generally, but in London it may be up to five or six days.

The Post Office, which is dealing with this crisis by extra overtime working and the diversion of mail from more heavily to less heavily loaded sorting offices, expects the number of items on hand to be reduced over the next two weeks to about half the current level and the service will further improve in August, although the peak of the annual holiday season makes this somewhat difficult.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear, the reasons for the current difficulties are varied. We had an exceptionally bad winter, which undoubtedly had its effect in a number of the delivery problems up and down the country; industrial action on the railways, in road haulage and in the shipping industry; and the letter bombs in Birmingham, which is an important focal point for mail from all over the country. Regrettably, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the industrial action in the Post Office at present has aggravated these problems.

Some of these problems are outside the Post Office's direct control. Nevertheless, it is clear—and I accept the burden of my hon. Friend's case—that all is not right with the postal services. Indeed, my hon. Friend has pointed to what he regards as a lack of efficient working in the Post Office, and I shall return to the point shortly. But looking at the question more generally, the House will know that it is a matter of prime concern to the Government that nationalised industries should not use their monopoly of privilege to cloak inefficiency and provide a poor service to the public. It was in this context that the Secretary of State referred to a review of the Post Office letter monopoly in his statement on 2 July.

The Post Office itself is taking action to improve matters as quickly as possible, but in the short term much depends upon its ability to recruit additional staff. The difficulty that arises from shortage of staff at about 20 key offices includes six offices in London. Overall, the figures that I have show that there is a shortage of 5,000 postmen and 2,000 sorters, of which 2,000 postmen and 700 sorters are in the Inner London area, and as many again would be needed to reduce overtime to acceptable levels.

One is often asked why it is not possible to recruit postmen when there are 1½ million people unemployed. The Post Office tells me that for some time its pay and conditions have been insufficiently attractive to recruit people to work within the unsocial hours for which postmen are expected to work. Even the high amount of overtime pay available does not seem to tempt recruits in sufficient numbers.

It is no good, however, for anyone simply to say " Pay them more ". Any conventional post service is labour-intensive, and if such a business is to be able to pay high wages without unaccept- ably high prices, it is essential that this labour is used as efficiently and productively as possible. Indeed, there is a declining ratio here of the available business to the work force, to which my hon. Friend rightly pointed.

There is considerable pressure for high wages in the postal service, where, to provide the kind of service demanded by the public, large numbers of people need to work unsocial hours. Without more efficient working, the service can only get more and more expensive, leading to declining traffic and consequent lowering of productivity and the moral of postal staff.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already made clear, we were dismayed, therefore, to learn of the postal workers' rejection in May of a fair offer by the Post Office of higher pay for increased productivity. We still find this attitude difficult to understand, particularly as acceptance of the offer was recommended by the executive of the Union of Post Office Workers.

In an industry which has always needed labour and always will, and which has an annual labour turnover of about 20 per cent., there need be little fear for jobs in the climate of improving efficiency. Moreover, in a working environment which requires the staff, as I have said, to work difficult hours, it is surprising that those staff are not prepared to accept alongside them a unmber of part-time workers to help to ease the load at the busiest times. This need for productivity is particularly necessary in London, which is not only a major traffic generator in its own right, but, of course, a crucial transit point.

At present, efficiency in London is lower than it is elsewhere, and, given the London position at the centre of the postal network, the effect of this is felt all over the country.

Hon. Members may ask what the Government are doing to put matters right. I must make clear again that under the Post Office Act 1969 the Post Office has a wide degree of autonomy in day-to-day matters, which include the precise measures to be taken to improve efficiency and quality of service. I do not think that it would be right, even if we had the power, for Ministers to intervene in such day-to-day operational matters, although I accept the force of what my hon. Friend said on the broader questions to be covered in the reviews to which we are committed.

I see our task as setting strategic objectives and providing the right economic and political framework for the Post Office, and other nationalised industries, to operate efficiently and give the customer the service to which he or she is entitled, at a reasonable price.

It was precisely on this basis that my right hon. Friend made his statement on 2 July. It is for the Post Office to put its own house in order, but if it cannot do so we must look at the statutory framework within which it operates.

In the past few weeks there has been a great deal of criticism of the Post Office, and I have to admit that much of it is justified, but it would be wrong to conclude this debate without referring to some of the good aspects.

We should not forget all those postal workers who throughout one of the worst winters for years worked loyally and well to get the mail to our doors. I dare say that many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend, will support from their own constituency experience the view that we still get in many cases a first-class service to our own front doors—a service which is still superior to that enjoyed in many parts of the world.

Again, there are those in Birmingham whom my hon. Friend the Minister of State met earlier this week who made such tremendous efforts to cope with the situation not of their own making but caused by the letter bomb incidents. Indeed, some hon. Members serving London constituencies have also mentioned to me the considerable efforts made by postal workers there to overcome the difficulties that I have described.

Then there are all those who are working often long hours to reduce the present backlog.

My hon. Friend has mentioned the question of giving management a wider opportunity to manage and the possibility of an inquiry into the management of the Post Office. I think that the Government would not easily be convinced that a specific inquiry of that kind would be appropriate at the present time, but I should not like my hon. Friend to think that there is not a great deal of work going on into these matters, stemming from the Secretary of State's statement on 2 July, and we recognise the urgent need to come to the House with a reaction to the Carter report, which is long overdue and was delayed by the previous Government.

I am sure that hon. Members would agree with me that although there is a lot about the postal service that needs putting right, and putting right urgently, there remains a tradition of service and loyalty within the Post Office that has not died out. The Government recognise the special difficulties that Sir William Barlow has had to face in his first 20 months as chairman of the Post Office. We wish to give him every encouragement to clear up present problems and in the long term to build on that tradition to give this country the postal service which it desires and of which it used to be proud.

Mr. Kenneth Baker

Could my hon. Friend say whether the Secretary of State will he in a position to give his decision upon the Carter report before we rise for the recess, and, if so, whether he will come to the House and announce it?

Mr. Marshall

I am in some difficulty in answering my hon. Friend because there is such pressure of business, as he knows, but certainly this is a matter to which the Government attach great importance, and we intend to come to the House at the first possible opportunity.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twelve-minutes to Five o'clock.