Crown Post Offices: Franchising

Hugh Gaffney Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham, in such an important debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on securing the debate. I pay tribute to the Communication Workers Union for its tireless work on this issue. Having served as a union representative with the CWU, I have witnessed the dedication of the union and its members in fighting against Crown post office closures. I have been with Royal Mail for 28 years, so I know that post offices are central to daily life in our constituencies. They serve as the hubs for towns and villages, and are the very lifeline of rural communities. It is not just that they serve the public; they have their complete confidence and trust. Post offices are trusted to deliver, receive and collect goods in letters or parcels daily. The public know that they are staffed by dedicated postal staff who are proud to work in the Post Office network and who not only have local knowledge and contacts but are firmly rooted in the communities that they serve.

Postal workers have good jobs that they are proud to do, with terms and conditions second to none, secured through agreement between the CWU and Post Office management. The principle of the Post Office is that it is a business that serves people’s needs, not one that pursues profit. That is the reason why it has dedicated staff who are always willing to go the extra mile, who treat their customers’ goods as if they were their own, who always provide extra help and support to vulnerable customers, displaying patience and willingness to help customers in need, who will help and guide customers when a form needs to be filled in, who take the time to speak to their customers, and who use their local knowledge and contacts to contribute to daily community life. It is that sheer dedication to the customers that has made our post offices so cherished by the public.

The Post Office is not a new business. It has lasted over 500 years. Postal workers have been proud to wear the uniform and are proud of the Post Office’s history. I remember when the Royal Mail was one big network, dedicated to serving the public good, with postal workers united in purpose to support customers—as they still do. We never missed a single letterbox. We delivered six out of seven days a week. We were out in all weathers, come rain or shine. We dealt with the public’s goods across the UK, from Land’s End to John O’Groats. We worked day and night to collect, transport, separate and deliver goods within a 24-hour turnaround. For 21 years, I fought successive Governments to stop the sale of Royal Mail, but eventually a Tory-Lib Dem coalition was successful in selling it off. I said then—and say it today—that Royal Mail was not for sale.

Despite the sale of Royal Mail, Post Office Ltd was kept in public hands, but post office closures soon followed, and some post offices began to be moved into the private sector. Along with redundancies, there were attacks on terms and conditions by the new management. Good people, who were dedicated to and passionate about their work, were treated as just a number—and that number was the amount it would cost to make them redundant. A choice was put before them of accepting a redundancy package or continuing in their job with worse terms and conditions than they had enjoyed. Let me be frank: that is theft. They steal our jobs and our terms and conditions, all of which we won through the collective efforts of our unions and their members.

We were told that some closures were necessary—that some were carried out to protect other post offices and that no further closures would occur. Each time, those promises to the workers and the communities that rely upon post offices were broken. We now face the prospect of the Government giving away more public money to help to sell off a further 74 Crown post offices, severing the connection between the post office and the community and leading to the loss of more dedicated staff. It is another blow to Britain’s high streets. That public money is being awarded to WHSmith, a company that holds the hotly contested Which? award of being voted worst retailer by consumers. It offers low pay for its staff, poor terms and conditions, and service standards lower than those expected in our post offices. This race to the bottom will simply lead to a decline in the service that the public receive and a decline in standards, which will tarnish the proud history of the post office network and its dedicated staff.

I will do all I can—I know the CWU will do likewise—to fight the planned sell-off of our post offices. From the support shown in this debate by the Labour party, we can say that we will be doing all we can, unlike the Tory party, given the empty seats on the Government Benches. Not one Government Back Bencher has turned up to try to defend themselves. The battle to protect our vital post offices is one that must be fought and, more importantly, it can be won. I pay tribute to Liam Murphy, a CWU rep. I stood alongside him, Glasgow and District Amal postal workers and Carole and David Bowmaker, who are good, hard-working union reps. We fought twice, and we won. East Kilbride still stands today as a Crown post office. If the battle comes again, I will stand with the same people, standing up for that local community. I also pay tribute to the CWU national officer, Andy Furey, who is here today. He has dedicated his life to fighting these battles. He has been all around Britain talking to the people now sitting at home, wondering, “What happened to that good job I had?”

This Government meddle, meddle, meddle. It is their job to meddle, but I ask them to stop the closure and sale of post offices, work with the CWU, listen to local communities and invest in our Crown post offices, protect the high-quality service that the public deserve and expect, and provide some long-overdue job security to the dedicated staff.