On 12 May, I highlighted on this blog the problems that the Postal Services Bill might encounter in the House of Commons, following a relatively smooth passage through the Lords. So what has happened since then and is the Government on-course to get the Bill passed before the summer recess?

21 May was the day that things began happening in the Commons with regard to the PSB. On this date, the Bill received its first reading. However, this stage is just a formality and no debate or vote takes place. Now usually what happens after this first stage is that a Bill progresses to its second reading circa two weeks later, at which there is a debate on the principle - rather than the detail - of the Bill. However, no date has been set for the PSB to receive its second reading; given the controversial nature of this Bill, it would appear that time is running out.

Each Thursday when Parliament is in session, the Leader of the House of Commons (currently this is Harriet Harman) announces the business in the HoC for the next week, and provisional business for the week after. However, was no mention of the PSB in last Thursday’s announcement, which means that is very doubtful that anything will happen – in a legislative sense – before 29 June at the earliest.

So what does this mean? Well, Parliament rises for the summer on 21 July and it has been the Government’s intention to complete the complete the Bill’s parliamentary passage by this date. However, this timetable is becoming increasingly tight. There are a number of possible scenarios that could happen, for example, if the Bill were to fall or be postponed (i.e. nothing further would happen until the House returns after the summer on 12 October), or if the Bill were to amended so that one or two of its three parts were to removed (with the remaining part(s) going through) – all of which have their own implications. However, Richard Hooper, the Chair of the Review that informed much of the thinking that went into the Bill, is certainly of the view that all three parts of the Bill must stand (as per his recent article in the Guardian).

In short, time is disappearing for our legislators to get the Bill as it currently stands through before the summer recess. Even if time is allocated to the Bill in Harriet Harman’s business statement on Thursday, there promises to be fraught scenes in Westminster the following week, as both sides passionately set out their case and attempt to secure enough votes to carry/derail the Bill. We will watch with interest.

P.S. Also, in the aforementioned post, I noted that the French Government were trying to partially privatise La Poste. However, it has emerged that although they plan to invest €2.7 billion euros into the organisation, it turns out that this won’t be private money; rather, shares will only be sold to public sector investors.

Tags: Harriet Harman, parliament, politics, postal services

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Private Sector. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.