Crown Post Offices: Franchising Debate
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James Frith
Main Page: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)Department Debates - View all James Frith's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Crown Post Offices: Franchising
James Frith Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered franchising of Crown Post Offices and the effect on high streets and local communities.
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Just before Christmas, we learned that 74 Crown post offices faced closure or franchising to a retail branch, including my local one in Wigan. Taken alongside the 150 that have already been closed or franchised, that represents a staggering loss of 60% of the network in only five years. Crown post offices might be a small part of the overall network, but they are significant, historically accounting for between 10% and 20% of overall profits.
Many of us in the Chamber remember the anger when post offices were closed under the previous Labour Government. We should have learned then that the Post Office is important to the people of this country: it is our asset, we own it and we are proud of it. When the coalition sold off Royal Mail, two thirds of the public were strongly opposed. But here we are, and once again we have been cut out of the consultation.
The Post Office says that it has been consulting, but there is every reason to believe that those consultations are nothing more than a sham. The 2017 wave of closures was announced before Ministers had even bothered to respond to their own consultation, in which 75,000 people had urged them to think again. When the Aberdeen office was franchised, WHSmith advertised for new counter staff—at what was described as the “fantastic” level of the minimum wage—while the consultation was still going on and before any consultation with trade union representatives about terms and conditions.
James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. Does she agree that, as with our argument for postal workers, we demand better working conditions, pay and prospects in public assets that perform well? Does she agree that modern post offices can give more service to the public, but that that must not mean less for the workers in them?
Lisa Nandy
I could not agree more, and I know that my hon. Friend is a tremendous champion of that workforce in his Bury constituency. That point goes to the heart of how a publicly owned service should set the standard for how we treat our workers and our customers. I absolutely agree with him.