§ Mr. Anthony Coombs (Wyre Forest)I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to empower organisations other than the Royal Mail to provide a postal service; and for connected purposes.The Bill seeks to abolish the Post Office's exclusive privileges to carry letters around the United Kingdom under section 66 of the British Telecommunications Act 1981, to promote competition, encouraging incentive and new services to improve efficiency and thus to improve standards of services to customers of the Royal Mail and existing costs.The Bill follows two Bills proposed by my hon. Friends the Members for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) and for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) in January and February this year and an Adjournment debate on the subject last month. The hon. Member for Falkirk, East (Mr. Ewing) called the matter a "hardy annual". It is now becoming a triannual and reflects the urgency felt in the House and by the public at large about the declining standards of service in the Post Office and the urgent action required to remedy it.
The Royal Mail service will soon be a 21st-century service with a 17th-century pedigree. In 1657, Cromwell put the existing monopoly on a statutory basis, not for reasons of efficiency or economies of scale, but because of the use of the post for
many and wicked designs which have been and are daily contrived against the peace and welfare of the Commonwealth.That paranoia about security and absence of objective thinking seems to have been extended down the ages to many who unthinkingly oppose the abolition of the monopoly to this day.However, it does not take much objectivity to identify the present concern about standards. The Post Office itself does so in its annual reports and accounts. In 1979, it identified "unsatisfactory postal services". In 1986, it said:
Quality of services falls short of target.In 1987, it said:Continuing traffic growth and considerable industrial unrest made it difficult to meet the quality of service targets.In 1988 it talked of 213 unofficial disputes, 63,500 working days lost and no fewer than 126 million letters being delayed. In its report this year, the Post Office will no doubt reveal that last year's postal strike caused the loss of 1.2 million working days and that delivery standards declined.Further afield, evidence comes from the London School of Economics, which said:
The quality of services is probably no better, and may be worse, than in 1971".In May this year, the Post Office Users National Council talked about its dismay about the delay in introducing improvements designed as part of last year's tariff package and it declared itself far from satisfied with the quality of service figures resulting from the new basis of measurement, which was a realistic door-to-door basis of measurement. Colleagues no doubt have anecdotal evidence from their constituencies which would amplify the problems many times over.The Post Office argues that its volumes increased by 30 per cent. over five years, that it has created 18,000 jobs and that it will invest about £620 million over the next three years. However, one might ask why, if volumes are increasing so much and if economies of scale are so 979 important, there are no improvements in service. Equally, the Post Office might argue that a monopoly guarantees through a national service a quality of service that is expected by the general public. In the past five years, there have been many interruptions. Last year, one sixth of all days lost through strikes and stoppages were in the Post Office. That contradicts the Post Office assertions. The Post Office might argue that a monopoly is necessary to protect services in rural areas, although it agrees that there is no reason why those costs could not be made explicit and the Post Office compensated by potential competitors for the diseconomies of scale that might be revealed.
Irrespective of those arguments, the Post Office monopoly is not delivering a sufficient standard of service. As The Times said last September:
In return for accepting the monopoly, the customer does require that the service should be reliable".Sadly, it is not and delivery standards appear to be declining. The Post Office Users National Council carried out a door-to-door survey in February and found that only 79 per cent. of first-class mail reached the doorstep by the following working day. The target is 100 per cent. By May, that proportion had declined to 72 per cent. In some districts, such as Peterborough, only half the first-class service reached districts regarded as distant the next day and only 61 per cent. reached districts next door to the home district the next day.The results of a survey by the Mail Users Association are even worse. Over a period of 18 months, from June 1987 to March 1989, fewer than two thirds of first-class letters reached their destinations the following day. The second-class service has become a fairly unfunny joke. The so-called standards maintained by the Post Office are maintained at 90 per cent. only by continually moving the goalposts. In 1975, the target was moved from delivery on the second day after posting to the third day after posting. In 1978, that became the third day after the letters were collected, as opposed to after they were posted.
The present position is totally unsatisfactory. My argument is that, as in every other area of human economic endeavour, be it clothing, foods or utilities, competition forces the economy to respond to the needs of the consumer. That will apply in the case of this monopoly also.
It is significant that, in 1987, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), then the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, pointing to a bad year for industrial relations in the Post Office, said:
We must consider whether it is secure as a monopoly carrier.In 1988, the situation was considerably worse, and he was still considering. The present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster voted in 1976 and 1979 for the abolition of the monopoly. Even Alan Tuffin has said:We accept that we may have to live with competition. We will take it on and beat it.The Post Office Board and the Mail Users Association are both in favour of competition. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recently stated:I agree that greater competition would be good, and we may have to consider ending the monopoly on the postal letter service, which would bring welcome competition."— [Official Report, 6 June 1989; Vol. 154, c. 15.]If any further evidence were needed, I offer the fact that, since the parcel service was opened to competition, its 980 turnover has increased dramatically, as have its profits, to £32.2 million this year. It has extended its services and it is providing a better quality of service for the public.There are a number of suggestions about the form that such competition should take. I do not believe that there should be a free-for-all, achieved by reducing the minimum charge from the present £1 to a nominal amount, because there would be problems of supervision and other complex problems and no significant competition except in specialist areas. Equally, trying to duplicate what has happened with British Telecom and having a Mercury-type competitor on a national basis would unnecessarily restrict entry to the market, involve huge infrastructure costs and mean that competition was unrealistic in the short term.
Two scenarios have the informal agreement of the Post Office as pragmatic and viable. They would give uniform pricing for a nominal service and guarantee deliveries in any particular area. They would also be co-operative and would use the existing Post Office infrastructure. One scenario involved companies being given licences on a regional and district basis for collection, sorting and local delivery. The other, which is supported by many people in the Post Office and by the Mail Users Association—
§ Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd)Order. The hon. Gentleman would remain in good order if he now concluded.
§ Mr. CoombsThe last word should be left to Roland Hill, who was born in my constituency and who was the father of the penny post. When advocating the abolition of the Post Office monopoly, which he called an offence to our statute book, he said that abolition would allow the
probable rise of a wholesome competition wherever the service is performed with less than the greatest efficiency and cheapness".The British public deserve greater efficiency and cheapness. I commend my Bill to the House.
§ Mr. Harry Ewing (Falkirk, East)Fortunately, Roland Hill was born before the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) became the Member for Parliament for that constituency, which is something for which we must be thankful.
Speeches on this issue never change. I should declare my interest right at the beginning of my opposition to this ten-minute Bill. I am sponsored by the Union of Communication Workers.
When the hon. Gentleman said that the public wanted urgency in the privatisation or liberalisation of the Post Office, call it what one will, he was failing to take account of recent surveys and public opinion polls. The morning after the Prime Minister gave her broad hint that she was in favour of breaching the monopoly, Derek Jameson had a phone-in on his BBC radio programme. It went on until the Friday morning and showed that 68 per cent. of people in this country are in favour of maintaining the monopoly and that only 32 per cent. are in favour of breaching it. In anybody's language that is a substantial majority in favour of retaining the status quo, and there are, of course, good reasons for that, especially for people living in rural areas.
I shall repeat what I said in January and again in February. For the time being— I emphasise "for the time being"—rural areas are represented by Conservative Members of Parliament. It therefore always astonishes me 981 that Conservative Members are prepared to come to the House and present ten-minute Bills that would put their constituents at a most serious disadvantage in terms of the postal services. I am convinced that most constituents do not know what their Members of Parliament are up to when they come to the House. It is well known that all the surveys and costings have shown that in the rural areas the cost of sending a letter would be at least £1. The great advantage of the monopoly and the universal postal system is that there is a universal postal rate. Whether a letter is posted in Orkney or in Shetland and sent down to St. Ives in Cornwall, or vice versa, it costs the same as a letter posted in London to another address in London.
The Post Office workers accept that the monopoly places upon them a responsibility to deliver a service. I agree with the hon. Member for Wyre Forest that there is always room for improvement. Those who work in the service are just as keen as—if not keener—than the hon. Gentleman to improve the service. To bring about the improvements that my colleagues in the Post Office want would be more difficult than the difficulty the hon. Gentleman has had in presenting his rather silly Bill.
I say to the hon. Member for Wyre Forest as kindly as I can that he does not understand some of the problems that the Post Office has to put up with. One major problem is the concentration of postings at 5 o'clock at night. Big businesses do not post twice or three times a day; they post only once a day. If big businesses could discipline themselves to post two or three times a day, many of the Post Office's problems would be removed.
Another major problem is envelopes that are put through meters to be franked. I advise Conservative Members to do as I do and to check the date on the letter against the date on the envelope. I receive letters repeatedly, especially from Government Departments, on which the date is five days previous to that on the envelope. That has nothing to do with the Post Office, but is the fault of those who process the meters.
As kindly and as gently as I can, I point out to Conservative Members that, after the tragic incident at Lockerbie, the Secretary of State for Transport protested that he had posted a letter and he blamed the Post Office for the fact that it had not been received. It was disgraceful that it was said that the letter was posted on 19 December and was lost in the Christmas mail, although it was later discovered that it was not posted until 20 January. That is is how easy it is for people to blame the Post Office.
The Abbey National building society, when it was changing its status, did exactly the same. It blamed the Post Office when its shareholders had not received their letters, but it had not even put the letters in the mail.
When Conservative Members begin to understand the Post Office's problems, especially those that I have highlighted, they can talk about inefficiency. Until that time, we should continue to throw out such Bills.
§ Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 19 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business):—
§ The House divided: Ayes 77, Noes 161.
983| Division No. 265] | [4.03 pm |
| AYES | |
| Adley, Robert | Atkinson, David |
| Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham) | Beaumont-Dark, Anthony |
| Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard | Kirkhope, Timothy |
| Brazier, Julian | Lawrence, Ivan |
| Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's) | Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh) |
| Budgen, Nicholas | Mans, Keith |
| Burns, Simon | Mills, Iain |
| Carrington, Matthew | Montgomery, Sir Fergus |
| Cash, William | Morris, M (N'hampton S) |
| Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S) | Oppenheim, Phillip |
| Colvin, Michael | Paice, James |
| Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest) | Patnick, Irvine |
| Coombs, Simon (Swindon) | Pawsey, James |
| Currie, Mrs Edwina | Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth |
| Curry, David | Porter, David (Waveney) |
| Day, Stephen | Raison, Rt Hon Timothy |
| Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd) | Redwood, John |
| Evennett, David | Riddick, Graham |
| Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas | Sayeed, Jonathan |
| Favell, Tony | Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey) |
| Fenner, Dame Peggy | Skeet, Sir Trevor |
| Forman, Nigel | Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield) |
| Fry, Peter | Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W) |
| Gill, Christopher | Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John |
| Goodhart, Sir Philip | Stewart, Allan (Eastwood) |
| Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles | Stradling Thomas, Sir John |
| Gow, Ian | Summerson, Hugo |
| Greenway, Harry (Ealing N) | Taylor, Ian (Esher) |
| Gregory, Conal | Thorne, Neil |
| Hague, William | Tredinnick, David |
| Hamilton, Neil (Tatton) | Vaughan, Sir Gerard |
| Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn) | Warren, Kenneth |
| Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE) | Watts, John |
| Holt, Richard | Widdecombe, Ann |
| Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd) | Wilshire, David |
| Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W) | Winterton, Nicholas |
| Irvine, Michael | |
| Janman, Tim | Tellers for the Ayes: |
| Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N) | Mr. Nicholas Bennett and |
| Jones, Robert B (Herts W) | Mr. John Bowis. |
| King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield) | |
| NOES | |
| Abbott, Ms Diane | Davies, Ron (Caerphilly) |
| Adams, Allen (Paisley N) | Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'I) |
| Allen, Graham | Dewar, Donald |
| Alton, David | Dixon, Don |
| Anderson, Donald | Dobson, Frank |
| Armstrong, Hilary | Doran, Frank |
| Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy | Douglas, Dick |
| Ashton, Joe | Duffy, A. E. P. |
| Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE) | Dunnachie, Jimmy |
| Barron, Kevin | Eadie, Alexander |
| Battle, John | Eastham, Ken |
| Beggs, Roy | Evans, John (St Helens N) |
| Bell, Stuart | Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E) |
| Benn, Rt Hon Tony | Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray) |
| Benyon, W. | Fatchett, Derek |
| Bermingham, Gerald | Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n) |
| Boateng, Paul | Flannery, Martin |
| Brown, Gordon (D'mline E) | Foot, Rt Hon Michael |
| Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E) | Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S) |
| Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith) | Fraser, John |
| Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon) | Fyfe, Maria |
| Buckley, George J. | Galbraith, Sam |
| Caborn, Richard | Galloway, George |
| Callaghan, Jim | Garrett, John (Norwich South) |
| Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE) | Godman, Dr Norman A. |
| Campbell-Savours, D. N. | Gould, Bryan |
| Clark, Dr David (S Shields) | Graham, Thomas |
| Clay, Bob | Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S) |
| Clwyd, Mrs Ann | Griffiths, Win (Bridgend) |
| Coleman, Donald | Hardy, Peter |
| Cook, Frank (Stockton N) | Haynes, Frank |
| Corbyn, Jeremy | Hinchliffe, David |
| Cousins, Jim | Home Robertson, John |
| Cox, Tom | Howarth, George (Knowsley N) |
| Crowther, Stan | Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd) |
| Cryer, Bob | Hoyle, Doug |
| Cunliffe, Lawrence | Hughes, John (Coventry NE) |
| Cunningham, Dr John | Hughes, Roy (Newport E) |
| Darling, Alistair | Illsley, Eric |
| Janner, Greville | Richardson, Jo |
| Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn) | Robertson, George |
| Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W) | Rogers, Allan |
| Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald | Rooker, Jeff |
| Kennedy, Charles | Rowlands, Ted |
| Kilfedder, James | Ruddock, Joan |
| Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil | Salmond, Alex |
| Lambie, David | Sedgemore, Brian |
| Leadbitter, Ted | Sheerman, Barry |
| Leighton, Ron | Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert |
| Livingstone, Ken | Short, Clare |
| Lloyd, Tony (Stretford) | Sillars, Jim |
| Lofthouse, Geoffrey | Skinner, Dennis |
| Loyden, Eddie | Smith, C. (Isl'ton & F'bury) |
| McAvoy, Thomas | Smith, Rt Hon J. (Monk'ds E) |
| McKay, Allen (Barnsley West) | Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam) |
| McKelvey, William | Snape, Peter |
| McLeish, Henry | Steel, Rt Hon David |
| Maclennan, Robert | Steinberg, Gerry |
| McWilliam, John | Stott, Roger |
| Madden, Max | Strang, Gavin |
| Marshall. David (Shettleston) | Straw, Jack |
| Martin, Michael J. (Springburn) | Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury) |
| Maxton, John | Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis |
| Meale, Alan | Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck) |
| Michael, Alun | Turner, Dennis |
| Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley) | Vaz, Keith |
| Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute) | Wallace, James |
| Molyneaux, Rt Hon James | Wareing, Robert N. |
| Moonie, Dr Lewis | Welsh, Andrew (Angus E) |
| Morgan, Rhodri | Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N) |
| Mullin, Chris | Wigley, Dafydd |
| Murphy, Paul | Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then) |
| Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon | Wilson, Brian |
| O'Brien, William | Winnick, David |
| Orme, Rt Hon Stanley | Worthington, Tony |
| Patchett, Terry | Wray, Jimmy |
| Pike, Peter L. | Young, David (Bolton SE) |
| Powell, Ray (Ogmore) | Young, Sir George (Acton) |
| Prescott, John | |
| Radice, Giles | Tellers for the Noes: |
| Redmond, Martin | Mr. Norman Hogg and |
| Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn | Mr. Dave Nellist. |
| Reid, Dr John |
§ Question accordingly negatived.