Stephen's views on Royal Mail & the Post Office

Royal Mail Group comprises a number of businesses, the two largest being Royal Mail which is responsible for the postal delivery service and Post Office Ltd which is responsible for the Post Office network. For years these businesses have been under-funded by successive Conservative and Labour Governments which has led to a massive programme of post office closures, and which threatens the Universal Service Obligation (USO).

The Post Office network has been badly underfunded by a succession of governments. Both the last Conservative and the present Labour administration have overseen a huge programme of post office closures as a direct result, which have included branches at St. Michael's Hill, Colston Street and Queens Road in the Bristol West constituency. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have long campaigned for the maintenance of the Post Office network and recognised this problem some years ago. I am calling for the Post Office network to be wholly ring-fenced as a publicly owned enterprise which should benefit from investment to enable it to develop into a "postbank" as well as being a point of contact for people requiring advice with regard to benefits, pensions and tax credits.

The Royal Mail, as the Hooper Report points out, has a difficult problem. The most significant competitor to the Royal Mail is now email, text and other forms of electronic communication. It is vital that Royal Mail begins to use modern techniques in order to be able to continue to uphold the universal service obligation.

Three years ago the Liberal Democrats, recognising these problems, developed a comprehensive policy to secure the future of both organisations by:

• Separating the Post Office network from Royal Mail as an independent publicly owned organisation, with its own board of directors, an investment plan for the future, and significant investment to undertake those plans.

• Giving post offices the opportunity to develop new business through the "postbank" concept and a prime role in delivering to citizens on behalf of government.

• Placing the USO on a statutory basis six days a week throughout the UK.

• Placing Royal Mail into shared ownership, with a majority of shares divided equally between the Government and a Trust for Royal Mail staff, and a minority of shares available for sale (with all revenue going into the post office investment fund).

• Giving the regulator the power to place a levy on other operators who do not undertake the USO to pay towards its cost.

In addition the Royal Mail pension fund is in deficit. This has been largely caused by the failure of the last Conservative Government to make sufficient contributions, and by withdrawing too much past profit into the Treasury. We believe that this is unsustainable and that the pensions for retired Royal Mail workers must be made safe. We agree that it is right for the Government to take responsibility for the deficit.

I have many letters asking me to sign Early Day Motion 428, but I believe that this EDM fails to recognise the core problems within Royal Mail, fails to recognise the need for a solution to provide a publicly owned Post Office and is largely concerned with motions passed at Labour Party conferences. I therefore do not feel it would be appropriate for me to sign it. However, I have signed EDM 668 which advocates an excellent solution for the Post Office network and reads:

"That this House notes the vital importance of the Post Office network to communities both urban and rural; believes that the Post Office network is well placed to deliver a range of financial services and products which would assist in combating financial exclusion; further believes that the Post Office network offers an opportunity to act as an advisory interface between the state and the citizen in matters such as benefit and tax credit; and further believes that in light of the Hooper Review the Post Office network must be ring-fenced as a discrete, publicly owned network, and that the Government should invest in the network to create a postbank and advisory service."

In terms of the Bill which the Government has introduced in the House of Lords regarding the future of the Royal Mail, I believe that the legislation would not secure a sustainable future either for the Royal Mail or the Post Office network and so I will therefore be opposing it. In response to this Bill my Liberal Democrat colleague, John Thurso MP, has put forward the following Early Day Motion (No. 1078), which I will be signing, and states:

"That this House notes the introduction of the Postal Services Bill in the House of Lords; notes that it fails to offer the investment needed to modernise the Post Office network and to enable it to develop new services, fails to facilitate the creation of a Postbank to offer banking services to all, fails to give the Royal Mail the ability to borrow on capital markets, fails to provide the enabling powers to widen the remit of the Post Office and Royal Mail to enable them to compete in new markets, fails to facilitate the creation of any form of employee shared ownership scheme or staff council for Royal Mail and fails to give customers a proper voice to hold the activities of Royal Mail and Post Office Limited to account; believes that the Bill will not therefore secure a sustainable and competitive future for either the Royal Mail or the Post Office network; and calls on the Government to incorporate all these features within the Bill and in addition to ensure that there is a universal service obligation in place on a statutory basis six days a week throughout the UK and to ensure that the Post Office network is ring-fenced as a discrete, publicly-owned network."