Postal Services Bill
Debate between Lord Christopher and Lord Young of Norwood Green(13 years ago)
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Lord Christopher
My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 8. I did not move Amendment 13 because, frankly, I was confused by the way in which the Order Paper came through, but it seems that the essential issues are the same. References have been made to the value of this company and the lack of knowledge of that value. It is certainly not BT or British Gas. The closest I can come to previous privatisation operations is British Rail, which I think at least one Conservative spokesman in the past has said might have been carried out more felicitously. It is still being heavily subsidised. As to value, the only thing I know for certain is that it is not a Glencore, which is valued at the moment at some £34 billion. There are going to be considerable problems in achieving a proper valuation of this company.
The problem with the Bill is that we do not really know what we are addressing. We do not know what the Government will do—I am not sure that the Government know that for sure. There are three options: the sale; the mutual, on which we are waiting a report from the Co-operative Society; and the prospect of an IPO. My purpose is not to divide on this but to persuade the Minister that there are still some safeguards that need to be put into the Bill. It is not good enough as it is, when we are dealing with post that is so close to the public, to sell it, wash our hands of it and leave it all to a regulator. We are here in this goldfish bowl of the House of Lords, yet outside things are happening that are bound to make people uneasy about what might happen to Royal Mail if it is sold off to A, B or C under whatever terms. I have sought in my amendment to tighten up what due diligence means, to widen it beyond finance and to look much more carefully at exactly how a buyer has conducted itself and its business history.
We all remember Ford, which bought Volvo, Jaguar and Kwik-Fit. At the end of the day, Kwik-Fit was sold to a private equity house, CVC, at the third of the price that Ford paid for it. Stagecoach bought the American company Coach USA for £1.2 billion, which almost made Stagecoach broke. Closer to present times, Southern Cross, which is the largest provider of care homes in the country—it has 31,000 homes—was owned by Blackstone, an American private equity company. It ensured massive expansion on the basis of sales and leaseback. In the valuation of Royal Mail, I understand that most if not all its sites and buildings have already been sold and are back on leaseback. Some 17.5 per cent of the shares of National Express are owned by the hedge fund Elliott. It is now actively seeking changes in the board, which has been interpreted as a move to make sure that National Express comes on the market. We need something that ensures not just the prima facie suitability of an initial buyer but the opportunity, if things are sold off—for example Parcelforce, which seems to be Royal Mail’s one growing asset—for the Government to ensure that whatever happens is right and proper.
I mentioned the Netherlands at Second Reading. Four companies now handle the Netherlands’ mail. The people of that country can expect to receive mail delivered from these four companies. There is the half-orange post, which is owned by TNT. It delivers six days a week. There is the blue post, a company called Sandd—an acronym for the “sort and delivery” postal service. It delivers two days a week. There is the yellow company, Selekt, jointly owned by Deutsche Post and DHL, which delivers twice a week. That company is interesting because it has never made a profit and is now, it hopes, going to be sold. It is run by home workers, who sort and deliver at and from their homes. The legal low limit for pay in the Netherlands is between £8 and £9 an hour, but this company is very careful to ensure that none of its workers reaches that figure and that they are kept on a monthly basis below the rate that is required by the Netherlands Government of £580 a month. They are seeking now to sell it to Sandd.
The fourth company is called half-orange, which is owned by TNT, and it calls once a week. Again, that is interesting, because there we have TNT competing with itself. Why? Because it is using not full-time post staff but casual labour. This is not something that is happening in a third world country. It simply carries the somewhat dogmatic belief that we can privatise and get competition and that it always works best. I do not think we want to risk anything like what has happened in the Netherlands happening in this country. If the Government do not make it clear in the Bill that the likes of this will not be tolerated and that that is provided for in the Bill, I will think there is something seriously wrong with the Bill—and if things go the wrong way, we will know exactly who is responsible for that.
We are seeking to sell the service at a very bad time in economic terms. There is no queue out there of people saying, “Let me buy the Post Office”, so I hope the Minister will think hard about what has been said, not just by me but by others, and will try to ensure that the Government come back at the final Reading with some proposals that comfort us and the British people that this is not being sold off just for fun but is something that we are trying to ensure is properly financed and properly run in Britain.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
My Lords, we welcome the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, and believe that it is a step in the right direction. The question is whether it goes far enough in that direction. We welcome the Government’s acceptance of the kind of information that ought to be made available before Royal Mail is sold. We have already stated that there are still many unanswered questions about the disposal—the timetable, the qualification of the future owner, the nature of the sale, how value for money will be secured, the danger of asset-stripping, safeguards for the universal service, and safeguards for the post office network. Yet the scope that is being given to the Secretary of State to make the sale is still very large indeed, with only a factual report to Parliament.
There is a significant improvement in the scale of information that is being offered, but it is certainly not the whole answer. I listened carefully but I did not quite get the assurance given on the nature of the contract between Royal Mail and the Post Office. I would welcome the Minister, in responding, clarifying the point that she made about next spring, when this contract is likely to be signed, and saying how strong the guarantee is on the 10-year period. Is it still just a hope, and are there still likely to be legal barriers to the 10-year period being a part of the contract?
I want to speak to Amendments 7 and 8. The House will be aware that we have consistently put the case for a long-term agreement between Royal Mail and the Post Office, to run from point of sale. We have proposed a 10-year duration. As my noble friend Lord Whitty said, it is certainly not an academic issue; it is a matter of commercial survival. The Government’s assurances are an improvement but still fall short of the commitment that we seek. I have no doubt that we will continue to return to this issue until we get a satisfactory assurance.
My noble friend Lord Whitty’s amendment provides a useful elaboration of the information that we seek, including the contract length, any contractual break period and the total value of the contract to Post Office Ltd. We urgently support his amendment and urge the House to do so.
Amendment 8 seeks further guarantees, and important ones, on the risk assessment of the proposed disposal of Royal Mail. My noble friend Lord Christopher rightly seeks confirmation that due diligence of the prospective buyer has been undertaken. These are sensible steps to take before such an important transaction, and I thought that his graphic and interesting description of the Netherlands postal system was an important contribution to this debate.
Once again, we support this amendment.
Postal Services Bill
Debate between Lord Christopher and Lord Young of Norwood Green(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Christopher
My Lords, it would be extremely helpful if the noble Baroness could explain at some point the precise purpose of this clause because it can be read in more than one way. If we are talking about Royal Mail or the company that will own it alone, that is one thing. If we are talking additionally about those providing only part of the service, that is another. The logic of the situation is that when Royal Mail is 99.9 per cent efficient, if it is using much the same machinery as those currently doing some of the sorting do—I think 10 or 12 have been mentioned—then it seems it would not be able to make a profit. What is more, the service would not be economical. Economies of scale suggest that you sort this mail in one place, or at least in one system, so I would appreciate some clarification. Where I fully agree with the two speakers on this, the mover and the speaker from the Liberal Benches, is that whatever happens we really do not want to revisit this issue. If I am right, and that competition to some degree in universal providers is a myth, we must be sure that we do not have to subsidise a Post Office and that proper charges can be made.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
My Lords, I can understand why my noble friend tabled his amendment, given his long association which started at the GPO—an association which I shared, although not on the postal but on the telecoms side, so we both have a long-standing and abiding interest. We want Royal Mail to have the ability to be profitable as the universal service provider meeting its universal service obligation. That has been the Government’s aim in removing the burden of the pension and in making it clear in today’s comments that they are in favour of competition, but not to the point that it undermines the Royal Mail’s ability to function. If that “profitable” was to take into account the full costs of providing the universal service obligation, we could see the benefit of that. There are some concerns about what implications there might be when that test is applied, such as on stamp tariffs et cetera, but I will certainly be interested to hear the Minister’s response to this amendment.
Postal Services Bill
Debate between Lord Christopher and Lord Young of Norwood Green
Lord Young of Norwood Green
No. Sorry to disappoint the noble Lord; I see that he is returning to his previous night’s form. There needs to be some return on the investment that the employee can anticipate.
The amendment proposes that a dividend of equal amount would be paid in respect of each share held by or for the benefit of any employee. When paying a dividend, it is important that all shares are equal and everyone is on an even footing, regardless of where they are in the company. That is an important principle.
The amendment proposes that no employee eligible to receive shares under the scheme would be permitted under the rules of the scheme to dispose of those shares to any other person. If we are serious about a stake in the company being held by employees, that is an important point. To prevent seepage turning into a flood of shares out of the scheme, as we have seen in the past, it is important to ring-fence the shares in the proposed scheme.
The amendment proposes that, on leaving employment, shares held by employees could be disposed of only by way of a transfer for consideration to the trust. It is fair that employees who leave employment and leave the scheme would be able to capitalise on their shareholding—that is one of the incentives of the scheme. To maintain the integrity of the scheme, though, they should dispose of the share back into the scheme.
The amendment proposes that the consideration payable under paragraph (d) would be an amount equal to what the market value of the shares would have been. To achieve a fair result for departing employees, a fair price for the share would be established in the absence of an open market. That would not be very difficult if other shares in the company were being traded. If this is not the perfect formulation of our ideas or improvements could be made, I hope that the Minister will take this away, give it serious thought and come back with an improved proposal to meet the same objectives.
It is a shame that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is not in his seat. In a wistful diversion down memory lane last week he reminded us of the “Tell Sid” campaign, conducted to boost interest in the privatisation of British Gas. We were told that Sid was the name of an uncle of the late Lord Walker of Worcester, who was the Secretary of State responsible for the sale. It is a bit ironic that the British Gas share advertisements featured a series of people so anxious to alert Sid to the share flotation that one of them was a postman who got knocked off his bike in the excitement. The mind boggles. If the postmen or postwomen of Britain are to be induced to fall over in the excitement at 100 per cent privatisation of Royal Mail—somehow I doubt it—perhaps the Government should address some of the questions raised in this amendment. They are serious; they make a constructive contribution and improvements so that a good idea becomes a very good scheme. I support the amendment.
Lord Christopher
My Lords, I apologise for having been diverted to another meeting. There are two issues that concern me on which I would be grateful if there were some comment. There is an assumption that there will be a market in these shares, and I am not at all clear that that will necessarily be the case. If there is not, how is it proposed to deal with that situation?
I may have missed the point on the other issue. Assuming that something like the amendment goes through, we have an employee share scheme of this nature and shares are sold back, will we reach a position where all the shares are in the hands of this trust, or whatever it may be called? How will we deal with that situation?