This Bill received its second reading yesterday. It was moved by Peter Mandelson and a ‘fatal’ amendment was put down by Lord Clarke of Hampstead. Tony Clarke was a post worker throughout his life and feels very passionately against the Bill as he sees it as privatisation. He did not push his amendment to a vote.
The House listened to his winding up speech in silence – you can almost hear the pain in his words when you read it. You could certainly hear it during his speech! I believe he is wrong however and I made the point in my speech http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldhansrd/text/90310-0006.htm that we didn’t do the postal service any favours when we tried so hard to accommodate their views in the original legislation. As I say in this speech governments often do lean over to accommodate other views in legislation but it can then result in an Act which doesn’t fully address the problems. I think we are now completing this work and I hope we will end up with a postal service that can compete on equal terms and be more innovative than in the past.
If you are interested in this topic it is well worth reading some of the other speeches before and after mine. Lord O’Neil made a very relevant speech.
All I want is a service that allows me to send a letter or parcel, to a recognisable address, on a day and time that suits me and the recipient.
Impossible, as it stands.
First, the recognisable address. The Royal Mail have a monopoly on that and I live in a Bermuda Triangle for any other courier. I am not entirely sure but I suspect RM are responsible for dishing out post (zip) codes. Try find me. Even Yellow Pages accepted that ours was not a ‘findable’ address, with couriers ringing me up 200 yards away. My local council can’t get my address right.
I no longer collect mail that imposes a £1+ fine on the me, the recipient, since it is not my legal resposibility to get it to me – if there is a law that makes it the the responsibility of the sender then make them pay.
If I pay extra to get a letter/parcel delivered on a particular day I have to go through hoops to get a refund, and it does not help the reputation of my business.
All the current couriers have their faults. The one redeeming feature of the Royal Mail is that it attempts to get mail to an address, but they are in control of those etc.
The Post Offices are a completely separate issue which appears to have been conflated with the Royal Mail.
Would you agree that this is disingenuous, or can you point out the errors of my way?
Thanks, Tiz