Backbench Business

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) on securing this important debate.

There are two affected Crown post offices in my constituency. Local people have pointed out to me that that is particularly bad news for disabled people and there will be a reduction in post office services in the area. Tens of thousands of pounds have recently been spent on refurbishing the Crouch End post office. There seems to be a distinct lack of logic in ploughing a whole lot of public money into doing up a post office and promptly closing it. In the case of the closure of Muswell Hill Crown post office, there is a further risk to local jobs, because there are another 60 jobs at the Royal Mail sorting office behind the post office. In the London property market, once the doors of a facility like that close, a real estate agent will pop up and sell it either for some sort of housing development or more coffee shops. If there is one thing that Crouch End does not need, it is more coffee shops. We need proper services for local people.

In the various parts of my constituency that have become more populous in a short time, with denser housing developments, we desperately need services such as post offices. A petition has been signed by hundreds of thousands of local people. Will the Minister say whether that petition has been taken into account? I have not met anyone locally who wants to see the doors of the Crown post offices close.

On parliamentary scrutiny, I have been asking for months for some sort of debate. I am pleased that my hon. Friend succeeded in securing this debate, but there has been a lack of debate. I requested a meeting with the Minister, but I was not successful. I also requested a meeting with her predecessor, who sits in the House of Lords, and was again unsuccessful. Will the Minister pledge today to meet those of us who are affected so we can each have a few more minutes to go into detail about this urgent issue?

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I refer Members to the fact that I received tremendous support from the Communication Workers Union during my 2015 general election campaign. Does my hon. Friend agree that as we approach Christmas, the importance of the post offices at the centre of communities is heightened? Although I understand that her constituency is densely populated, that is particularly important in constituencies with rural areas.

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Regardless of whether they are in rural areas or urban areas, post offices are places where people can meet friendly faces, so they do not necessarily have to do everything over the internet. We all treasure that kind of community service.

Will the Minister also tell us whether the Government’s consultation is genuine? Time and again, we have had an announcement by the Post Office, a rather anodyne meeting and then a sense of resignation—a sense that “We’re just going to close them anyway.” If the consultation were real, we would have a genuine dialogue and a genuine sense that what we as Members of Parliament said was actually going to make a difference. Sadly, there is a fog of resignation over this issue. I fear that that is why many people tell us that they feel disconnected from national politics. They spend hours lining up to see us at surgeries to tell us something and then we do not get a result. It is not through lack of trying. Thousands of petitioners stand outside in the snow, hail and rain, collecting signatures that their MP cannot even get a response to. I am sounding a bit frustrated because that is how we feel—those of us stood outside the post office, Saturday after Saturday, getting signatures for petitions but not getting a response. I want an assurance from the Minister that the voices of Members of Parliament will be heard and that the consultation is not just a sham.

I always want to be a positive Member of Parliament, so I want to give the Minister some ideas. Suggestions were put forward in “Securing the Post Office Network in the Digital Age” in November 2010 to make it the front office for Government and to grow financial services. We know there is a crisis in the general high street banks. After all the banking scandals, people cannot trust whether the bank is on their side, but people do trust the Post Office as an emblem, a community symbol and a friend.

I hope the Government will look again and genuinely consider what we have to say. We are here not because we want to spend more time with each other, but because people want our voices to be heard. Will the Minister give us a reassurance—as a new Minister, there is a new opportunity—that she will listen to us genuinely and give us a positive hearing? People want their Crown post offices, so listen to our voices and think again rather than implementing these foolish and unpopular proposals.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Margot James)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) on securing today’s very important debate on the future of the Post Office.

The Government recognise the crucial role that post offices play in communities across the country. I echo the numerous tributes that we heard in the debate to the sub-post offices and management and staff who work in the post office network, including our own excellent post offices here in the Palace of Westminster. They do a wonderful job.

Between 2010 and 2018, the Government will have provided nearly £2 billion to maintain, modernise and protect a network of at least 11,500 branches across the country. The Government set the direction for the Post Office. That means that we ask it to maintain a national network of post offices that is accessible to all, and to do so more sustainably, with less need for taxpayer subsidy over time. That includes the maintenance—this was a manifesto commitment of my party at the last election—of 3,000 rural and semi-rural branches, about which we have heard little this afternoon and which would otherwise be uneconomic to run. Post Office Ltd delivers that strategy as an independent business; we do not interfere in its day-to-day operations or decisions about the provision and location of branches.

Today, as I said, there are more than 11,600 branches in the UK and the network is at its most stable for decades—although people would not know that from the debate. That is because the Post Office is transforming and modernising its network, thanks to the investment that the Government have been willing to make. The Government support has enabled almost 7,000 branches across the UK—more than half the entire network—to be modernised, offering a better experience for customers and more sustainable retail propositions for postmasters.

[Catherine West]

Can the Minister explain the logic whereby a lot of public funds are put into a branch of the Crown Post Office and then it is promptly closed?

[Margot James]

The hon. Lady mentioned the Crouch End post office in her speech, and I made a mental note to look into that. I cannot comment on that particular branch. Occasionally in business, someone makes an investment, it does not work out and they have to cut their losses. That happens in any business. I cannot comment on the specific branch, but I will look into the matter.