Post Office (Hansard, 5 June 1997)

§ 15. Mr. Gapes
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will make a statement on the future of the Post Office. [669]

§ Mrs. Beckett
We have initiated a review of options for implementing our election manifesto pledge to grant the Post Office greater commercial freedom to take advantage of new challenges and opportunities, both domestically and internationally. The review will enable us to develop a coherent and comprehensive policy programme for the Post Office, something which the previous Government so signally failed to do.

§ Mr. Gapes
May I welcome my right hon. Friend in three ways: first, to her appointment; secondly, for her statement about the future of the Post Office; and, thirdly, on behalf of my constituents, for the action that she and 545 my hon. Friend the Minister of State, the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), took to reprieve Ilford Crown post office, which has been a fantastically popular decision? I thank the Government on behalf of my constituents.

§ Mrs. Beckett
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks and his welcome. I am very familiar with the valiant campaign that he and so many of my hon. Friends fought on that issue in the interests of their constituents. I know that his remarks will find an echo with many of them.

§ Mr. Yeo
In view of the unsatisfactory level of service that many of my constituents and people in other parts of the country receive from the Royal Mail, and the extraordinary success in raising standards of service in industries that have been privatised, will full-scale privatisation be among the options considered in the right hon. Lady's review?

§ Mrs. Beckett
No, it will not. The Post Office, even under the previous Government, who did nothing but undermine and interfere with it, is one of the most commercially and professionally successful post offices in the world. I am appalled as well as surprised that the hon. Gentleman should be so critical. The Post Office hopes, believes and will show in its future plans that, given the commercial freedom denied on dogmatic grounds by the previous Government, it will be able substantially to improve service. What the hon. Gentleman hates is that it will do so in public ownership.