Crown Post Offices: Franchising

Debate between Gill Furniss and Liz McInnes

Thursday 10th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gill Furniss]

I very much agree, and I will go into that point in more detail later.

Post Office management claim that they will have six months’ notice if a retailer that hosts a Post Office counter collapses, but in reality a collapse could be immediate and would risk the total closure of the counter. It seems reasonable that contingency planning should be done to prepare for all eventualities. Has the Minister had any discussions with the Post Office about the matter? Can she assure us that she is aware of reasonable contingency plans for any of those scenarios?

My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) referred to the independent reports published by Consumer Focus in 2012 and by Citizens Advice in 2016, which looked at the impact of closing and franchising former Crown post offices and locating them in WHSmith branches. They concluded that it has led to an increase in queuing and service times, a deterioration in customer service and advice, poor disabled access, and a reduction in the number of counter positions. As hon. Friends have pointed out, the retailer has been voted as providing some of the worst customer service in the UK—surely not a ringing endorsement.

The impact of these changes on local communities is significant, and vulnerable people, the disabled and the old suffer the most. The general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention, Jan Shortt, has said:

“Older people are some of the biggest users of the Post Office, and many rely on being able to talk to expert staff, but the move to franchise services to WHSmith is going to be bad for customers...pensioners will find some of the offices are no longer easily accessible or particularly private. This will become a second class service if we don’t stop these plans immediately.”

Similarly, the chief executive of the deaf and disabled rights charity, Inclusion London, and representative of the UK-wide Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance of disabled people and their organisations, Tracey Lazard, said:

“Replacing accessible Post Office premises with a post office counter squeezed into the back of a WHSmith store can leave Disabled people at a significant disadvantage, particularly people with a mobility impairment. Post Office Ltd should be taking action to maximise the accessibility of its premises and services rather than taking this retrograde step that cannot be justified and will instead further Disabled people’s exclusion.”

[Liz McInnes]

Given that Crown post offices are Government property, and that Post Office Ltd is proposing a change that may well be detrimental to disabled people, does my hon. Friend agree that it is absolutely incumbent on it to carry out an equality impact assessment?

[Gill Furniss]

I completely agree. I am sure we will be asking the Minister whether she will address that, as it would seem that it is completely irresponsible of Post Office Ltd not to do so. It should be at the heart of any consultation with the public and the organisations I have referred to, which represent many of those people.

Despite fierce local opposition to the closures and the franchising programme, the Post Office has not undertaken serious and meaningful consultation and has been clear the closures will go ahead. At the meeting of the all-party parliamentary group for post offices in October, when asked that the consultation process consider the range of views on the matter, senior Post Office representatives were forced to admit that the decisions about the closures had been made, and that the consultation would merely be an exchange of information and a look at further details. Given the Post Office’s public mandate and the fierce opposition to the closures, that is astonishing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) highlighted the particular impact that the closures will have on disabled constituents in our communities. There is also the impact on financial inclusion, as well as on the many other services, including the very important biometrics and essential Home Office information and documents that are issued in post offices. In the end, despite huge public opposition, a large amount of public funds have been used, with significant job losses and significant closures.

The Minister will no doubt repeat what she has said before about not having overview of Post Office structures and processes, referring to the fact that these are commercial decisions for the Post Office. However, I refer her to a petition that the current Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), presented in March 2008. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan cited it earlier, and it is worth mentioning again. That petition urged the Government to “instruct” the Post Office to halt the closure of the post office in Maidenhead and

“to listen to the views of local people in respect of their objection to the closure of this vital part of the local community.”—[Official Report, 6 March 2008; Vol. 472, c. 142P.]

Perhaps the Minister could take a lead from the Prime Minister under whom she serves, call in Post Office management and instruct them to halt the closures. Instead of investing in our post offices, maintaining expert staff and broadening the services available, the Post Office under this Government is going backwards.

I applaud the Communication Workers Union for its campaign, Save our Post Office, and its championing and protecting of workers’ pay and conditions of service. At the same time as post offices are closing, sub-postmasters are seeing a decline in remuneration. Many have written telling me they are just about breaking even but earning less than minimum wage, and services are declining. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) gave worrying examples of this trend of many sub-postmasters losing their livelihood and acquiring significant debt. I have had correspondence from a sub-postmistress who told me that she is likely to lose her home because the figures she was given when taking on that sub-post office have never been realised.

How is the Minister scrutinising the Post Office’s strategy and what it means for the service? Will she outline what consultation there will be to ensure the strategy brings in relevant stakeholders and the public in a proper wide-ranging consultation? I am quite astounded that the Minister did not once come to the House so that parliamentarians could have the opportunity to scrutinise these decisions and what they mean for our constituents.

The Labour party has been clear. We want to grow the service, end the closures of our Crown post offices, maintain good pay and conditions for staff and innovate into the future, because we believe in our public institutions and what they mean to the public. At last year’s election, we pledged to create a commission to look into setting up a post bank, which would be an important step forward in financial inclusion and would also provide important income streams to maintain, sustain and grow post office services more widely.

I am pleased we have had the opportunity to debate this important matter today. I urge the Minister to recognise the strength of feeling expressed in today’s debate and reconsider her position. I urge her to take a more considered approach with the Post Office—a publicly funded institution—first, by halting the closures and, secondly, by holding Post Office Ltd to account for the decisions it is making that are having a negative impact on our constituents.