My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. I hope I can answer the questions that have been put to me. Again, let me assure noble Lords that these amendments to primary legislation governing the postal services will have no impact whatever on the UK’s universal postal service and will preserve, as far as possible, the rights, responsibilities and protections offered by the existing system. They make only those changes necessary to ensure that the regime continues to be fully functional on exit day. As I said on previous regulations, this will increase legal clarity and be of benefit to national regulatory authorities, businesses and consumers.
The noble Baroness asked about the cost to the taxpayer. This will have minimal impact. The regulations qualified for the de minimis threshold, which means that direct impact on business or civil society organisations is less than £5 million annually, and as such a full regulatory impact assessment was not considered necessary. As I have made clear, we will continue to offer the same postal and parcel services throughout the United Kingdom as we do now, and as we do to
remote communities. There will be no change in liabilities or obligations. Royal Mail will continue to deliver that universal service in line with requirements set out in domestic law.
The noble Baroness also asked what will happen as a result of revoking the cross-border parcel services regulation. Revoking that regulation will mean that the UK will not be required to share pricing information for cross-border parcel deliveries with the European Commission. Ofcom can request pricing information under the UK’s domestic provisions, which will mitigate any data gap between the UK and member states. There are also price comparison websites that provide information about prices for parcel deliveries from the UK’s service providers. Therefore, comparing prices for cross-border parcel services between the UK and EU member states will continue to be available to consumers.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked why the Postal Services Regulations 1999 are being revoked by these regulations. The 1999 regulations designated Ofcom and the Secretary of State as our national regulatory authorities for postal services, as was a requirement of the postal services directive, and that simply no longer applies after EU exit. In any event, the functions and duties of Ofcom and the Secretary of State relating to postal services are set out in the two Acts I referred to: the Postal Services Act 2000 and the Postal Services Act 2011. There is therefore no longer a requirement to designate them as the national regulatory authority under separate regulations.