Crown Post Offices: Franchising

Debate between Jo Stevens and Daniel Zeichner

Thursday 10th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans, and a particular pleasure to follow a very powerful speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle). It was a salutary warning, and I suspect that some of my comments will echo the concerns of others about the so-called consultation process. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on her powerful introduction. She speaks for all Labour Members on these important issues.

The announcement a few months ago that Cambridge was one of the post offices to be put through this process was met with incredulity in my city. People are absolutely furious. I will say a few things about our local circumstances, trying not to repeat some of the points that have been very well made already, and then make some general reflections.

The Crown post office in Cambridge has around 15 very experienced staff, who between them have 150 years of experience—experience that is likely to be lost if this process continues. The post office has already been moved across the street—that was not a popular decision eight years ago—from one of the many fine buildings in Cambridge, in order, we were told, to secure its long-term future. There are some interesting definitions of “long-termism” in the modern world. That post office is one of the most successful in the region and possibly, I am told by my colleagues in the Communication Workers Union, in the country. It has been one of the top-selling post offices for travel currency, travel insurance, travel-related products and passport checking. It is one of the top-performing post offices in the area, so we might expect it to be celebrated as a success story.

That post office is also one of the few nationally to carry out biometric services and provide international driving permits, which is what I want to focus on. There has been a huge change in our country for those coming here to work or study, which most of us—who do not have to go through such processes—are probably only dimly aware of. Those people have to have biometric residence permits. If we are to have that system, we also need a system to allow them to register their biometric data, and in my area it is the Crown post office in Cambridge to which they are directed.

[Mr Graham Brady in the Chair]

In conducting the research for this speech and talking to people locally about how the whole system works, I stumbled on what can perhaps only be described as a coincidence. In November, just after the announcement of the consultation, guess what quietly happened? That biometric information system has been very quietly transferred from the post office—although it still exists there at the current time—to the local library. However, it is hard to know how anyone would find that out, because if they go to the Home Office website or Post Office website, they will still be directed to the Cambridge Crown post office.

Let us, for the moment, continue to follow the public advice, because biometric residence permits are needed by all foreign nationals from outside the European Economic Area if they want to stay in the UK for longer than six months, extend their visa, or settle in the UK or have other interactions with the Home Office. In areas such as mine, which have huge numbers of people coming to study or work, and contribute to our local economy, this issue is enormously important. For instance, I am told that almost all the 2,000 non-EEA staff at the University of Cambridge will need to have used, or will need to use, those services, and if they cannot go to Cambridge, they will have to go to Huntingdon, Harlow or Romford, which requires hours and hours of travel on public transport.

[Jo Stevens]

I have a similar situation in Cardiff Central, where the biometric centre was in our post office, which is due to be put into WHSmith. I met with the post office to ask whether the biometric service would transfer to WHSmith, and guess what? It will not. Does my hon. Friend agree that that creates another barrier for people who are already in a vulnerable situation?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I totally agree, and that is an important point. Apparently, only 37 WHSmith stores across Britain have the wider access for wheelchair users, and if that is no longer available, people from my area would have to travel to Luton, Milton Keynes or London—a major diminution of service. It may be possible that those services can be provided elsewhere. Frankly, who knows? Maybe the Minister can enlighten us. Maybe she can tell us whether the timing of this transfer was random chance or coincidence. Maybe she can guarantee the future of our local library. I do not know, but my guess is that the Government have very little clue about the future, and I doubt that any answers at all will be offered. We shall see.

Other Members have mentioned disability access, and I concur entirely with the comments made about WHSmith in general, which I will not repeat. What I will say is that those of us who have been in and out of WHSmith in Cambridge know that it is already a crowded store. It is not listed by WHSmith as one of its wheelchair-friendly stores, and the idea that it is going to be a pleasant experience for people seems almost unimaginable, frankly. We have huge doubts. These services should be available to people and properly accessible. I say to those running the campaign on behalf of the Post Office that they should be careful of who they are taking on, because we have some pretty powerful campaigners locally. Councillor Gerri Bird led a campaign a few years ago to stop the toilets in the Lion Yard shopping centre in Cambridge being moved from one floor to another. After months of campaigning, she won and the other side lost. I say to the Post Office that it should be careful who it takes on. It would do much better to back down soon, gracefully.

Let me turn to some of the wider issues. As we have heard, the Government have said that they are worried about the high street. That is understandable; we all are. There are huge challenges, but we should not make them worse. This is not just about where a service is provided; as other Members have said, it is about the kind of institution. Many years ago, I worked for John Garrett, the former MP for Norwich South—some Members may just about remember John. He wrote a book, presciently entitled “Westminster: Does Parliament Work?”, which is good reading in these troubled times. I remember going around the local post offices in Norwich early in the morning with him, and the thing that struck us was that at every post office, there was a queue. An accountant, I suspect, would say, “Why are these people standing outside the post office when, if they came an hour or two later, they could just go in and be served?” The answer, of course, was that this was the occasion when most of those people got to see their friends. They were standing outside; as other Members have already said, it was part of a wider social issue. For the bean counters who are looking at the Post Office balance sheet, that probably does not count for anything, but it really counts in looking at the NHS balance sheet, in terms of the impact on people’s mental health from loneliness and so on. That is why the Post Office is a public service, not just a business.

People may also remember a recent, much-loved BBC television series, “Lark Rise to Candleford”. Some will remember the inestimable postmistress Dorcas Lane, who was at the heart of that local community. I suspect that series was much loved partly because it spoke to a conception of Englishness—one of fairness, kindness and public service—that many people still crave. As other hon. Friends have already alluded to, that also goes to the heart of the debate that is happening in the Chamber just a few yards away. Others have written eloquently on these related issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas), who was in the Chamber earlier, wrote of the then coalition Government back in 2011:

“The government is not conservative; it is liberal and extreme. Through its indulgence of the banks and corporate and media power, and attempts to sell off parts of our English common life to the highest bidder—forests, waterways, ports, the Post Office, sport and culture—it is systematically destroying the hard-won victories of generations and, in so doing, unravelling the essential fabric of this country.”

These post offices are part of that fabric. For my city of Cambridge—high-tech Cambridge—our post office is part of the essential fabric of our city and our community. I may be dismissed as a romantic socialist, and I would not disown that label, but I will conclude by posing a question to the Minister: what kind of conservative does not understand the place of the post office in an English country town or community?