Post Offices in Wales

Chris Evans Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered post offices in Wales.

It is a real pleasure to have you here speaking your excellent Welsh on this fine September day, Mr Hollobone, and to speak to you and to those assembled on the issue of post offices in Wales. As constituency MPs, we all know this is a matter of great importance to the people we represent.

It is important at the outset to recall that post offices are a great public institution and that they remain a public institution. There is a deal of confusion at the present time about the various statuses of Royal Mail, post offices and so on following the privatisation of Royal Mail, but the Post Office is, of course, still a public institution that is fundamentally owned and run by the Government. It is for that reason that I feel particularly animated by events occurring in Wrexham at the present time relating to our post office. Not just in Wrexham but across Wales, various proposals are being put forward that affect access to post offices for the people we represent.

As those of us who have been here for a number of years know, a number of bright ideas concerning post offices have led to reorganisations and various moves of post offices in recent years. As someone who bears the scars of the reorganisation that took place under the last Labour Government, I can point out that I opposed a number of closures locally. I regretted them then and regret them now, but they were taken forward by the Labour Government before 2010.

This particular case in Wrexham has animated me even more than those moves before 2010 because I think it is very important that all of our constituents should have access to a post office. That is not just my view; it is also the view of the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt). I wrote to her concerning this issue and she said in her reply:

“Facilities and services that need to be accessible to a wide spread of the general public, such as Post Offices, should ideally be located at ground floor level.”

Following a move of the post office in Wrexham town centre a number of years ago to a site in a pedestrianised area of the Post Office’s choosing, which the Post Office initiated, it has now decided it wishes to leave. It has moved a distance of only some 200 metres or so to another premises within Wrexham town centre. My main concern is that those premises are at first floor level and are situated within another shop—WHSmith—and are accessible to those who cannot go up the stairs only by a single lift at the rear of the premises. Quite simply, access arrangements for the post office are now much more difficult than previously, particularly for those who are disabled. I think, in the 21st century, that that is fundamentally wrong.

The post office and WHSmith staff who have dealt with me on this issue have been courteous throughout, both with me and with those I represent, but they cannot change the fact that the decision is fundamentally wrong. We have gone through a process that has been called a “consultation”. I was notified at the beginning of the summer that the move was going to take place and asked if I wanted to make any representations, which I did in writing as well as by meeting with representatives of the Post Office to express my strong disquiet that the premises was being moved to a first floor. Notwithstanding the strong views I expressed, I received no indication whatever that there would be any change of view.

I was also contacted by a number of my constituents through our excellent local voluntary organisation—the Association of Voluntary Organisations in Wrexham. I met with the disability access group in Wrexham and we discussed our concerns about the move. AVOW runs a Shopmobility project within Wrexham and has a number of clients that regularly use Shopmobility scooters to facilitate access within Wrexham town centre. Those Shopmobility scooters can be quite bulky on occasion and are often used by some of the most disabled members of our society. There was particular concern about moving around the store using scooters and the accessibility of the lift to get to the post office.

We arranged a site visit to the post office with the disability access group and, again, the post office and WHSmith staff were very helpful in organising the visit and were helpful and courteous throughout. I attended the store before the new post office premises opened with one of my constituents who uses a wheelchair, two other constituents who were using Shopmobility scooters and a number of other disabled constituents. We negotiated our way through the ground floor of the store to gain access to the lift and, one by one, the constituents were able to go into the lift—only one could go in at a time—and go up to the first floor to inspect the post office premises.

It was difficult for a number of my constituents to negotiate their way through the store downstairs to get to the lift, which is not very large and can hold only one person. Frankly, I was ashamed when I went to the store and saw how difficult it was for the individuals concerned to gain access to the post office. This is a post office that has always been on the ground floor in Wrexham town centre and has been moved by the Post Office, presumably for commercial reasons, to its new premises.

Within Wrexham town centre, like many other town centres nowadays, there are a number of empty ground floor premises. The previous post office premises and the current one are only 150 to 200 metres apart, and a number of ground floor premises are available for use as a post office, but that has been rejected by the Post Office.

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

I apologise for coming late to the debate, Mr Hollobone; I was held up a little bit. My hon. Friend from Wrexham raises a pertinent point. In Pontllanfraith in my constituency we are losing our post office; a campaign has been set up by councillors Gez Kirby, Mike Adams and Colin Gordon and it has attracted over 300 names. The real issue we have is that there is a lack of commercial help from the Post Office. When the sub-postmaster finds that business is slow, the Post Office needs to come in and give ideas on how to improve the business. Another post office in the constituency has come to me to say it is having serious problems. Having seen the post office move to a first floor in Wrexham, does my hon. Friend recognise that the post offices perhaps need to take a more commercial approach to their business?

[Ian C. Lucas]

I would like the post office in Wrexham, as a public institution, to contribute to the local economy. It is a Crown post office in Wrexham, and it is the main post office. In fact, it is now the only post office in the town centre of Wrexham, which is the largest town in Wales. The post office is taking business rates away from the local economy, because it has gone upstairs into another store that is already occupied by a WHSmith and is not paying business rates on a separate premises. So less income is coming into the town as a result of this decision. Furthermore, it is treating disabled people with a lack of respect by insisting that they go to a first-floor premises to avail themselves of services that we all take for granted.

There are relevant pieces of legislation relating to disability. I have no doubt that this particular example is legal, but there is no doubt either—I have seen it for myself—that these arrangements are much more difficult for disabled people than those that existed previously. I felt so ashamed when I went on the site inspection that we have a post office in this day and age insisting, for its own commercial reasons, on moving the premises to the first floor when ground-floor premises are available in other parts of the town. That is disrespectful to disabled people and not something that any Government organisation should be doing in this day and age.

I have made that position very clear to the Post Office, and I am pleased that the Minister for Disabled People has made clear her view that post office premises should be on the ground floor. I find it extraordinary that I even have to say that. It comes to something when a commercial decision of that type is made in a society where we should be treating all our constituents and all the people we represent with equal respect. I know that the Post Office is considering shifting various post offices to first-floor premises in other parts of the country, for commercial reasons. It is very important that a strong message is sent to the Post Office that it is not acceptable so to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Guto Bebb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, on this very warm September day. May I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) for securing this debate? This is an important issue that affects all of us in Wales and in other parts of the country. We all recognise that post offices are an important part of civic life and provide a service that is invaluable to many of our constituents. May I also pay tribute to him for not being partisan in his opening comments? He acknowledged not only a rebellion between 2001 and 2010, when a significant number of post offices were closed, but that the reduction was unfortunate—and, indeed, possibly a mistake.

From a general perspective, it is important to point out that there has been significant stability in the post office network throughout the United Kingdom since 2010. This Government have committed to have 11,500 post offices within the post office network—a figure that has been maintained—with an investment of some £2 billion between 2010 and 2020. That is a significant public investment in the post office network. Wales has seen a slight decline of some 4% in post office numbers since 2010, compared with a decline of 34% between 2001 and 2010.

In general terms, the aspiration to protect the post office network is something on which this Government and the previous coalition Government have come up to the plate and delivered. I believe that the aspiration to carry on protecting the network in a Welsh and UK context is shared by Members on both sides of the Chamber today. The overall picture is one of significant investment and, it should be stated, one of a reduction in the subsidy required to maintain that network.

[Chris Evans]

I hear what the Minister is saying, and it is good news that we all share the same aspiration to save post offices where we can. When postmasters come to me and say that their post office is under threat, the major issue is business rates. Have the Government looked at any ways of reducing business rates specifically for post offices?

[Guto Bebb]

Clearly, business rates will vary from business to business, depending upon the area. Certainly business rates are an issue for many small businesses in the Welsh context, and the Wales Office is very happy to raise with the Welsh Government the need to ensure that we have a structure in place that is beneficial to small businesses.

There is a commitment to protect community post offices and, indeed, to invest in modernising them to ensure that they provide a service for local communities. It is worth pointing out that where community post offices are lost, they are quite often replaced by a mobile service. In my constituency of Aberconwy, a number of rural villages are now served by a mobile post office service.