§ 1. Mr. RaynsfordTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he has taken to assess the opinion of the public on the future of the Post Office.
§ The President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Michael Heseltine)The Government issued a Green Paper on the future of postal services in June last year.
§ Mr. RaynsfordAs the President of the Board of Trade appears a little coy on this issue, may I remind him of the implacable opposition of the British people to the privatisation of postal services? May I also remind him that the people of Greenwich are equally opposed to the back-door privatisation of their post office by Post Office Counters, which is trying to close the Crown post office and to hand it to a franchisee, probably operating from the back of a supermarket?
§ Mr. HeseltineThe hon. Gentleman will know that the unions tried to organise a strike on the issue on Monday. I am pleased to tell the House that that strike was even more of a failure than the one a few weeks ago.
§ Mr. DoverDoes my right hon. Friend agree that the main difficulty is that the public still believe that he has it in mind to privatise Post Office Counters, whereas our only proposal is to privatise Royal Mail?
§ Mr. HeseltineMy hon. Friend is right. More than 19,000 post offices are in the private sector and only a relatively small number—a few hundred—are Crown post offices. The proposals that the Government considered were related to the privatisation of Royal Mail.