Future of the Post Office

Debate between Lord Desai and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Monday 18th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is talking about the Royal Mail service, rather than the Post Office. I know that there are separate discussions with the Royal Mail about the future delivery programme. I do not have the details in front of me, but if I can find details, I will write to the noble Baroness.

[Lord Desai (CB)]

Could the noble Baroness make sure that, for villages where there is no post office, there will be a mobile service at least twice a week? That would help residents to have some access to postal services.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point and I hope that that can be included in the Green Paper as one aspect of this. I reiterate that we see a future for community hubs. It may be that we need fixed premises for that to work in practice, rather than for it to be something that just visits. For more isolated communities, that may well be a solution. Whatever happens, we want to guarantee to all communities in the UK that they will be able to access a post office to do the business that they need to do in order to access public services, driving licences and all the things we were talking about earlier. They will need to have some form of post office within easy reach. That is certainly one way of looking at it.