Postal Services Bill
Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Hoyle
Lord Hoyle
Does my noble friend not press all the right buttons when she addresses the House? I cannot understand why the Government are going down this road. My noble friend Lord Young remarked on the ability of the new chief executive. She comes with a highly successful track record. Why do we not give her an opportunity to develop the Royal Mail, rather than going down the avenue of selling it off to any Tom, Dick or Harry?
The Government have said that they will try to get an adequate price for Royal Mail. That does not seem to me to be a good reason for what they are doing. Agreement has been reached between the unions and the management on the way forward, and they are willing to co-operate. We do not need to go over the past, as the noble Lord who spoke from the Cross Benches has suggested. We know where we are going. The capital is there. The important difference is that the Government have undertaken to underwrite the pension liability which will lift a great burden from the back of the Post Office.
I come back to the point that we have achieved an awful lot. The capital is available and the unions and management are co-operating. Everybody on both sides admits that we have a new chief executive who is very forward looking and will do all that she can to make the Royal Mail a success, so why are the Government kicking away the ground again? They do not appear to have much idea who will make a bid for Royal Mail. We certainly know that, given the recession, they will not get a good price for it. It seems to me that we are going down the wrong avenue. We on this side certainly support the amendment. My noble friend who spoke from the Front Bench made a very intelligent speech in which he outlined why we want the measure to go ahead. I hope that the Government are listening to what we are saying. I would like them to give the new management of Royal Mail the opportunity to carry out the modernisation. If they do so, I see no reason at all why the privatisation should go ahead.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, following on the same theme as my noble friend Lord Hoyle, it is pertinent to point out that the Minister did not accept the importance of the question posed by my noble friend Lord Christopher on the previous amendment. We have had a broad sweep of what a marvellous idea private capital is. However, we have no idea about guarantees relating to asset-stripping or about country of ownership, sovereign funds and all the other items on the long list. Does that not dent the picture that we are expected to believe in, given that the picture could be this one, that one or another? Would it not be more relevant to mention the interests of the British people, as we are here to represent the interests of society as a whole? They are interested in such things as the universal service, obviously, and in not selling off public assets. It is said that a big profit will not be made from selling the Royal Mail to private business. Is it not relevant to remind noble Lords that in the great wave of privatisations in the 1980s, the undervaluation of British Airways, British Gas and British Telecom alone on the first day of trading amounted to more than £2 billion? That will happen again prima facie unless the noble Baroness can say how the Bill will ensure that that will not occur.