The Postal Service (Hansard, 5 July 1984)

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, recent disappointing performance levels have owed much to industrial relations difficulties associated with the annual pay round and with the Post Office's ongoing drive to increase the efficiency of the business. This followed a period of improvement in service in late 1982 and in 1983, when the Post Office came close to meeting its delivery targets. In the light of the recent deterioration, the Post Office undertook an intensive review of mail arrangements in London. This review has now been completed and far-reaching changes implemented. The Government will now he discussing with the Post Office its plans to secure significant and sustained improvements over recent delivery performance.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that moderately encouraging reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that the public are deeply disturbed at the deterioration in service in recent months and are not prepared to accept mere declarations of intention? If these declarations do not bear fruit, may I ask what the Government propose to do about it?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, my answer was not intended to he a declaration of intent but to indicate that the Post Office board is doing something: for example, a better breakdown of postal services for London districts' traffic in inner area offices; a reduction in the number of weekday first class dispatches between inner area offices to two per day; and a separate van network solely for inner area to inner area first-class traffic. I accept my noble friend's point that the public are suffering both distress and inconvenience from the failure of the Post Office to meet performance targets. But this is due to the changeover in the management of the Post Office, who are going a considerable way towards reducing restrictive working practices within the organisation. Regretfully this cannot be done overnight so some disruption w ill, I am afraid, continue for some little time.

§ Baroness Burton of Coventry
My Lords, going back further than that, would the Minister agree that the real deterioration in Post Office deliveries was when we had the introduction of the second tier letter service? 400 Arising from that and following on, is he further aware that the consequent additional delay in each subsequent year of the second-class mail to fulfil the obligations that it should arrive later has greatly added to this late delivery? Will he look at that.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I am certainly prepared to look at it, but my information is that the introduction of the second-class letter postage has nothing to do with the problem. If we still had a single rate and delivery service all that would have happened would be that the whole system would be very much worse rather than just part of it.

§ Lord Somers
My Lords, can the noble Lord give the House any assurance that the Government will not try any such remedy as privatising the Post Office?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, that is rather a different question; but it is of course an important policy aim of the Government to reduce the size and scope of the public sector, and privatisation in all sectors is under review. The Post Office is not excluded from this review although there are no immediate plans to privatise the corporation.

§ Lord Mowbray and Stourton
My Lords, does my noble friend think that it might meet the Post Office's wish to be more efficient if post codes were fully used? If this is the case, will my noble friend try to encourage the Post Office to encourage the public to use post codes more?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, the recent mechanisation programme is proceeding apace and relies to a great extent on postal codes, but the Post Office has not been encouraging use of postal codes until the mechanisation process is complete. Once it is complete I have no doubt that the Post Office will follow my noble friend's suggestion.

Lord Bruce of Donington
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the profitability of the Post Office—which is one of the main criteria imposed by Her Majesty's Government—has increased progressively over the years and that last year it contributed £59 million net into the Exchequer? Is he further aware that all the productivity indicators have gone consistently upwards? Will he bear in mind that where the profit motive alone is taken as the principal criterion with consequent changes in management practice, it is not unusual for services to deteriorate slightly in the short term?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I do not think that it is the profit motive alone which has caused this, I hope, temporary deterioration from the Post Office's published aims. As far as the surpluses that are made by the Post Office are concerned, I did not have the £59 million figure for last year, but I can tell the noble Lord that they have had surpluses of £131 million since the year 1981–82. I may add for the information of the House that they owe the National Loans Fund £178.6 million.

§ Lord Nugent of Guildford
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there is no single measure which 401 would give greater savings and greater efficiency to the postal service than the universal introduction of the postal code? Is he also aware that in some areas of the country where the posting public use the postal codes there is no machinery at all to use it in the postal service? Can my noble friend give an assurance that he will ask the Post Office authorities to give top priority to the universal introduction of the postal code? Nothing would give greater economy and a greater boost to efficiency.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. He is perfectly right but, until the machinery exists in all sorting offices to deal with the postal codes, the Post Office feel that there is little point in encouraging more than they are at the moment the use of the code.

§ Lord Beswick
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in my area of Wimbledon, in south-west London, we had an absolutely superb service, as efficient as it was personal and friendly, and that now all that has gone under the drive for efficiency when too much of the sorting is centralised at the big new Nine Elms sorting office?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, the Nine Elms sorting office is, I would say, a great improvement which affects not only the whole of London but also the postage throughout the whole country because so much mail goes through London. I accept that in its building and implementation there have been hiccoughs such as those in his own district of Wimbledon to which the noble Lord referred, but, when it is fully operational, I can assure the noble Lord that he will find the service considerably better.

§ Lord Harmar-Nicholls
My Lords, rather than being led astray by the anti-profit question as put by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, is my noble friend aware that extra profits invariably reflect extra efficiency and that it is extra efficiency that we want at the end of the day?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I think that I am grateful to my noble friend but, of course, profits come from a whole different range of things—including, I may say, the interest on investments.

§ Baroness Seear
My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord when, on first installing this equipment, it was expected to be completed and what is causing the hold-up?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, the major hold-up is that at the beginning the Post Office workers refused to operate the machinery. I am glad to say that this is now getting considerably better. The implementation of the entire outward sorting will be completed by the end of 1985.

§ Lord Davies of Leek
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that some of us sympathise with the postmen in trying to decipher the horrible calligraphy resulting from the use of that anti-calligraphic weapon the ballpoint 402 pen, which is ruining human handwriting and making the reading solution of an address almost impossible for the postmen?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I take the noble Lord's point.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, arising out of my noble friend's reply to my noble friend Lord Nugent and to the noble Baroness opposite, can he explain—other than by suggesting that it is an indication of a lack of drive on the part of the management of the Post Office—why there has been since postal codes were announced this enormous delay in bringing them into operation? It has taken many years.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I thought that I had already done so. It was because of the inability of the Post Office to persuade the Post Office unions to use the machinery which is being installed.

§ Lord Kaldor
My Lords, will the noble Lord consider adopting the system of post codes prevailing in all other countries? This is a decimal system consisting of numbers only, where successive numbers serve to indicate area, a district of an area, a region within a district, etc., so that anybody on reading the number can, more or less, fix the location of the place. Is not our system, which consists partly of letters and partly of numbers, very difficult to remember and absolutely meaningless to anybody?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I am afraid that I must disagree with the noble Lord. As somebody who has had in the past an interest in direct mail advertising, I can understand the postal codes in this country perfectly well.

§ Lord Plant
My Lords, would not the noble Lord the Minister agree that over the country as a whole the Post Office are giving us an excellent service? Would not the workers in the Post Office be deserving of more helpful and constructive criticism from your Lordships' House?

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. As I have been at pains to point out, although there have been difficulties within the Post Office, they are coming to an end.