Rural Post Offices

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend is right to draw attention to the banking framework agreement. We are grateful for the work that the Post Office and the banks have done together. Post Office Ltd handled over 128 million banking transactions on behalf of the high street banks; that represents growth of around 12% year on year. The implications of the new framework agreement with the National Federation of SubPostmasters was announced at its conference and has led, in some cases, to a doubling or even trebling of the fees that agents can receive from the banks.

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, the Post Office recently announced that it is closing and franchising a further 74 Crown post offices, leaving up to 700 jobs at risk. This means that, since 2013, 224 Crown offices have been shut, representing a 60% cut in the Crown network. Will the Government finally intervene and end the closure of Crown post offices by introducing a new condition in the Post Office’s funding agreement?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, again, the important point is that our post office network is now making a profit and is broadly stable. The Question is about rural sub-post offices, but the noble Lord referred to Crown post offices: there will be occasions when some of those have to be closed. It is coverage that is important; I assure the noble Lord that some 93% of the population live within one mile of their nearest post office and almost 99% of the rural population within three miles of one.