Crown Post Offices: Franchising

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) for securing this timely and much needed debate. Much has already been said about the damage that the downgrading of post offices can do, and I want to provide examples of what has happened in my constituency. Over the past few years, both before and since my election, Lewisham West and Penge has seen three post offices downgraded and franchised out in locations in Forest Hill, Sydenham and Beckenham. Two are Crown branches. The Forest Hill post office now operates out of a WHSmith shop, occupying some of the upper floor. Although it is serviced by a lift, it is cramped, the queue is frequently lengthy, and it is potentially an unfit environment for more vulnerable people. We must remember that vulnerable people are more likely to require the services offered by a fully equipped post office, including the elderly, those who might not have access to the internet and those who have difficulty in understanding, speaking or reading English and require a face-to-face service.

In Beckenham, the Crown branch property has been sold off and the service desks moved out of my constituency and up the high street to a WHSmith store. We have heard numerous examples of why WHSmith stores are not fit for purpose as post offices. Some of the services that used to be run in the Beckenham post office are now located in a convenience store, which has the post office that I now have to use, whereas I used to go to the Crown one. I do not want to do a disservice to the very nice chap that runs the post office there, but it is simply not an appropriate location for a post office. It is a convenience shop and space is limited, and it has only one counter. The queue often trails around the whole shop because demand is high, and the one counter simply cannot keep pace with the people who want to use the services. For a wheelchair user, or someone like me who often has a pushchair with them or a small child in tow, it is neither an efficient nor a convenient experience. The queue snakes between shelves full of alcohol on one side and the freezer on the other. I have lost count of the number of times when I have been there with my three-year-old and have had to tell him no, he can have neither wine nor ice cream while I am trying to send a parcel.

Joking aside, it is a real issue. The Crown post office in Sydenham has just been franchised out. It is and has always been a hub of our community and I remember using that post office when I was a young girl to get my passport and pay into my national savings account. It has saddened us in Sydenham that the franchise has been awarded to a stationery company, ZCO Ltd, with no good track record of running post offices. We are all incredibly worried. The Crown post office in Sydenham provided biometric services, which a number of my constituents had to use. Now they are being told they have to travel five miles to Brixton to get access to the services. It might not sound far to travel on public transport in London, but let us think for a moment: often it is vulnerable people who need those services. Sometimes they do not have recourse to public funds. Affording the bus fares to and from Brixton is not a very practical solution. With each and every downgrade, initial assurances are offered that services will remain unchanged and facilities will be kept on a par, yet whenever branches in Lewisham West and Penge have been downgraded, the assurances given upon franchising have quickly unravelled, leaving my constituents with a sub-par postal service experience.

As a former employment rights lawyer, I have deep concerns about the employment of staff members at franchised-out branches. When I have written to the Post Office seeking assurances, at the outset, they have always been given, but what is the reality? Some protections exist under TUPE but the CWU found that, in 2014-15, only 10 out of 400 staff from Crown post office branches that were closed were TUPE-ed over to the new retailer. In 2016, the figure was six out of 200—3% of staff. Those are shocking figures. Not only is that bad for jobs and workers’ employment; it is bad for customers’ experience. People employed by the Post Office service are highly skilled and trained staff, and they are used to the face-to-face interactions that the job requires. When such high-quality trained permanent staff are lost, services inevitably decline.

We should think about the effect that post office closures and downgrades have in the high street. When we ran the campaign to save the Sydenham Crown post office, local businesses said they desperately wanted to keep it because it would mean footfall on the high street. People who went to the post office would shop in local, usually very small, independent retailers. There is now a lot of worry locally about the effect on the high street of the downgrade. Crown post offices provide stability to high streets. A lot can be said about the transition to online commerce, but one step that the Government can and should take to protect high streets is to stop franchising out our post offices. It is not the only solution, but allowing those vital services to continue on the high street, serving our communities and constituents, is surely in everyone’s interest. The downgrades and closures, and the franchising out, need to stop now.

Budget Resolutions

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, which gives me the chance to confirm that there will be £20 million of investment—and it is investment—in the centre of excellence in fusion research. It will pay dividends for many years to come. The discussions on the successor arrangements to Euratom have gone as I hoped they would—that is, cordially and expeditiously—and good progress has been made on all the issues under discussion. We have made the necessary agreements with most of our major counterparts.

On places, the Budget announced extra funding for the Strength in Places fund, supporting local collaborations between business and research across the UK. This was also an important Budget for Britain’s small businesses. Extending the start-up loans programme will help more aspiring entrepreneurs to take the plunge. Further funding for the knowledge transfer partnerships will place graduates in smaller firms across the United Kingdom. The fivefold increase in the annual investment allowance will help to support firms as they invest and grow, and the £1.5 billion boost to small high street retailers, including £900 million in business rates relief, will support small businesses right across the country.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

The post office in our high street has been downgraded from a Crown post office and its services are being reduced. Our retailers in our high street are worried that this will mean fewer people coming into the community. What can the Minister say to reassure the retailers in our high street?

[Greg Clark]

One of our proudest achievements in Government has been to halt the destruction of the post office network—[Interruption.] It is substantially the same in numerical terms across the country as it was when we came into office. That is very important, for exactly the reason that the hon. Lady has set out. Post offices are crucial to many high streets and to the many small businesses that make use of their services.

We are in the early days of a period of spectacular opportunity for Britain. The truth is that none of the achievements that are within our grasp would be possible without the willingness of investors and entrepreneurs to take a risk in backing new ideas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I will indeed. Our supermarkets make an important contribution to our high streets, as do independent stores, and we want that to continue in the future. Sainsbury’s plays an important role on the high street.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

The Competition and Markets Authority says that it will not let the merger go ahead if any concerns that it has around higher prices or worse quality of service for shoppers are not fully dealt with. What assurances will the Secretary of State give that the same rigorous tests are being applied regarding the employment rights of employees at both companies, and will he commit to a meeting with the recognised trade unions?

[Greg Clark]

I am always very happy to meet the trade unions. As I have said, I met the chief executive of Sainsbury’s yesterday. The company intends to run the Asda and Sainsbury’s businesses separately. It does not propose store closures or changes to the terms and conditions of the separate employees.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I think the hon. Lady probably knows that the Government do not believe that. However, she has identified the real challenge that is out there in the workplace. It is not always clear what status an employee has, and that is something that we must clarify. One of the fundamental points in the Taylor review related to employment status and access to statutory employment rights. I am not ruling out being able to do more for self-employed workers, but at the heart of the review is the need to understand the definitions involved, and to ensure that people in those categories are given the rights and protections that they deserve and for which the hon. Lady and I have campaigned.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Companies such as Uber and Pimlico Plumbers wrongly categorise their workforces as self-employed in order to deny them basic rights such as holiday pay and even the national minimum wage. I have heard what the Minister has had to say today, but when will the Government finally clamp down on false self-employment and exploitative practices?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady will know that we have already made progress. Up to 300,000 workers who are entitled to payslips will now receive them, all workers are given a statement of their terms and conditions from day one, and 1.2 million agency workers are given a breakdown showing who pays them. We know that we must do more, but we want to respond carefully to the hundreds of responses to the Taylor review consultation that we have received, so that we can make the necessary changes and ensure that those practices are stamped out.

Insecure Work and the Gig Economy

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

As an employment rights lawyer for many years, I have seen time and again how insecure work can blight people’s lives. Between 2006 and 2016, there was a 49.8% increase in self-employment in London. That increase may not, as some claim, indicate an upsurge in entrepreneurial spirit, but it is a symptom of an ever more insecure workforce.

I spent the first part of my career working on holiday pay claims for construction workers. Many worked for the same company day in, day out under the strict control of their boss and without taking any of their own financial risk, but they were routinely told that they were self-employed and therefore not entitled to holiday pay, let alone to notice or protection against unfair dismissal.

Many years later, the issue of bogus self-employment has certainly not gone away, as demonstrated by the claim brought by Uber drivers, which was supported by the GMB. Uber tried to categorise its drivers as self-employed and said that they were not entitled to holiday pay or the national minimum wage, despite the fact that they were subject to Uber’s rules and training, were obliged to accept fares and could be penalised if they accepted a job and then cancelled. In a scathing employment tribunal judgment, those drivers were found to be employees. Time and again, unions and tribunals have stepped in where unscrupulous employers have thought they can get away with it.

Agency work is another area of insecure work that desperately needs reform. The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 brought in limited rights for agency workers—after 12 weeks, they are entitled to the same pay as they would be if they had been hired directly by the company—but there are a number of significant problems with those regulations. A loophole called the Swedish derogation means that agency workers can be exempted from equal treatment on pay if they have a permanent contract with the agency and it pays them a minimum amount between jobs. The reality is that agencies simply put workers on one job after another with the same hirer for many years, and that those workers never get equal pay with workers who are directly employed.

Moreover, the regulations do not create a presumption of employment with the hirer. For example, a factory worker who has worked in the same factory for 20 years but is employed via an agency could be dismissed on a whim. As the factory is not deemed to be her employer, she cannot claim unfair dismissal or redundancy against it. Surely that cannot be right.

Although the Taylor review may have been a step in the right direction, it simply did not go far enough. It is time for actions, not words, from the Government. Let us have a presumption of direct employment for agency workers, close the door to bogus self-employment and ban zero-hours contracts, and have better enforcement and tougher penalties for those who flout the law. Let us end the exploitation once and for all.

Blacklisting

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Chuka Umunna]

I wholeheartedly agree. My hon. Friend talks about litigation, and in July 2014 Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK and VINCI plc, which were all involved in blacklisting and in funding the Consulting Association, established a compensation scheme for individual workers affected by blacklisting and made an apology of sorts for what happened. However, their scheme was established unilaterally without agreement on the terms with the trade unions representing workers. Other firms that were part of the hall of shame involved with the association such as the Amec Group, Amey, BAM Construction, Morgan Sindall and Taylor Woodrow did not sign up to the scheme.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend knows, this is an important issue to me as I represented blacklisted members of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians in the High Court. Does he agree that no firm involved in historical blacklisting should be given a public contract until it demonstrates regret for its actions by supporting a public inquiry, offering retraining to victims and demonstrating that its recruitment processes are transparent and fair?

[Chuka Umunna]

I completely agree, and I commend my hon. Friend and the huge team of people who have worked on all the litigation we have seen in the High Court brought by a number of unions including UCATT— now part of Unite—which I am proud to say is headquartered in my constituency, and the GMB. Those unions deserve huge credit for the efforts they put into uncovering exactly what went on and then getting redress, working with my hon. Friend and others in the courts. Those cases have been settled in the past two years and millions have been paid, but the fact remains that not one director of the firms who funded the Consulting Association has ever been properly brought to book, fined or subjected to any individual court sanction for the misery they visited on construction workers over the decades. No one has been brought to book properly for that.

In fact, we are behaving as if all has been forgiven. Tears were apparently shed last month over the fact that we will not hear Big Ben’s bongs for several years. We should be far more concerned about the fact that Sir Robert McAlpine, a firm implicated in all of this, appears to have bagged a multi-million pound contract for the work that is to be carried out on Big Ben tower to fix those bongs.

Let us be clear about the role that the company Sir Robert McAlpine played. Cullum McAlpine, a director of Sir Robert McAlpine, was chairman of the Consulting Association when it was formed in 1993. Later, David Cochrane, the head of HR at that firm, succeeded him as chair of the association. During a hearing of the Scottish Affairs Committee’s inquiry into all of this in 2012, the late Ian Kerr, who died that year, admitted that his £5,000 fine for breaches of the Data Protection Act was met by Sir Robert McAlpine

“on the basis that I had put myself at the front and took the flak, if you like, for it all, so that they wouldn’t be drawn into all of this. They would remain hidden.”

How, in the light of that, can we parliamentarians sit here and say to the victims—many of whom are watching the debate in the Public Gallery—“It is an outrage”, while we stand by as Sir Robert McAlpine is awarded the contract to do the work on the parliamentary estate? There must be consequences when those who bid for public contracts are found to be involved in such practices. Will the Minister explain why on earth, given its disgraceful role in blacklisting, we are giving Sir Robert McAlpine the contract to fix the bongs of Big Ben, which so many parliamentarians have shed tears over?

I took up the blacklisting issue originally as a constituency issue, having been alerted to the scandal by my good friends at Unite; I took an even stronger interest when I was shadow Business Secretary, and I instigated the first full debate on the topic on the Floor of the House in 2013. As I have said, I instigated another debate on it earlier this year, because we must have a proper public inquiry into blacklisting, and the victims are continually denied it.