Backbench Business

Albert Owen Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I concur with everything the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) said. Many communities across the country—particularly rural communities—are suffering bank closures and financial seclusion in addition to the closure of Crown offices, which are the backbone of the Post Office. We need expansion, and we need it now.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I agree. It is vital that rural communities, in particular, have public services, sometimes on a smaller scale, to ensure that people living in more dispersed communities have proper access to those services.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The hon. Gentleman and I are largely in agreement. I have clearly said that there will continue to be a need for an element of taxpayer-funded subsidy for areas that can never be profitable, such as some of the smaller rural and suburban branches, so there will inevitably be a mixture of the commercial, which needs to be exploited to the maximum, and an element of public subsidy.

The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) mentioned the issue of banks closing. I have two important branches closing in small rural towns: Lloyds in Fairford and HSBC in Moreton-in-Marsh. Many of the services that those banks currently provide, such as depositing cheques and drawing benefits, pensions and so on, will be provided in future by the post office. If the post office then closes in those communities, my constituents in those communities will be left with a severe disadvantage.

[Albert Owen]

In addition to the banks closing and poor post office coverage, there is a lack of broadband and mobile coverage. So when people are asked to go online because they cannot physically get to these buildings, that is not available either.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I need to make progress now or I shall be reprimanded by the Chair for taking too long. There is so much to discuss in this debate and I have a little section in my speech about some of the innovative services that have been mentioned.

People view post office premises as dingy and out-of-date places that they do not want to visit. Clearly, the Post Office as a commercial organisation needs to do something about that. Branches needs to be attractive places that the public want to visit. The franchise model is not the nirvana that everybody thinks it is. Pizza Express, for example—I say this to my hon. Friend the Minister—was at one point 100% franchised, but the offering was so variable that the franchises were brought back into central management and it is now a highly profitable enterprise. If the likes of Pizza Express take the view that they do not want franchisees and they want to manage it themselves, I am surprised that the Post Office is not going down that path.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) on raising this matter.

I apologise for being slightly parochial, but in Northern Ireland there are some 500 post offices, and we are going through exactly the same problems. A recent report commissioned by the Government and carried out by YouGov and London Economics looked at the social value of the Post Office. From the survey, they found that 95% of individuals and nearly 90% of small and medium-sized enterprises used post offices at least once a year; but there is much more to it. The people who use them like using them. In the street as I was walking here, I met two people from the west country, and we discussed the fact that I would be speaking in the debate. They were senior citizens—elderly; they said they did not want to go digital. They like the community hub that works around the post office, and said please would I stand up for that.

I have twice spoken on this subject at Stormont. I was there only five years, and as a new boy it was almost the first thing I spoke about. There was a document about the six steps to save the post office; they included banking, broadband and working with everyone. It was a fantastic idea and everyone supported it, but it seemed to be ignored. At the end of my time there, it came up again. The point I was trying to make, which has already been made by others, was that as well as thinking of every post office as a centre of the community we should also look at the losses to villages, towns and parts of cities where the library, pub and bank have gone and the school has closed. We should start to work with councils, parish councils and whatever community bodies are there, to identify the places that we must save, which are the community hub and the post office. Rather than let decisions about those things be made without talking to others, let us work through them and try to hold everything together. If subsidies are needed— I think that was an excellent idea—let us try to get that to happen.

We can all learn from each other, including Members from Northern Ireland and Scotland—all the devolved Governments. Let us try to find policies that will pull things together, so that the Post Office must talk to us before it starts closures and we can work out how to save a town’s post office. My post office in Antrim has been having a battle to find a place to go. The chemist and the local retail shop turned it down. By the time a decision was made, everyone thought the post office was closing, and the figures had gone down; so those concerned did not want it, because it was not going to bring anything. We need to talk before the news gets out and causes such a reaction.

[Albert Owen]

That is absolutely right. Llangefni in my constituency put a petition before Parliament. We won the argument; those concerned agreed with us then. However, the Post Office has come back with the same proposal to close the same Crown post offices. It is not listening.

[Danny Kinahan]

That is exactly the point; the Post Office is not listening, but it needs to. At least it has put a consultation out, in our case; but it should listen before decisions are made. I make my plea—let us all talk to each other, consider towns and the centres of communities, and work together.