Royal Mail Delivery Office Closures

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this debate. The attendance both before and after the Divisions, which were an interruption of our discussion this afternoon, really shows that there is significant interest in this issue right across the House.

Of course, mail services are incredibly important to the public, whether for sending personal items, gifts or communications. They are also important for our economy. The rise in online shopping is important; for retailers seeking to branch out and sell to people in different parts of the country, mail services are certainly a significant part of the equation.

Parcel delivery ought to be an increasingly important part of Royal Mail’s business, particularly because of the decline in letter volumes, which has been a trend for some years now. We can all regret that fact, but it is a pretty consistent trend and we all know why—the advent of new technology. However, the parcel delivery market, which has grown with internet shopping, shows real scope for increase and additional business opportunities. Many of us will know our local delivery offices very well, having been invited every year to visit them, especially around Christmas time. I have visited the various delivery offices in my constituency and I am sure other hon. Members have visited the delivery offices in theirs.

I want to talk in particular about the challenges for Bishopbriggs delivery office, which is to be closed and merged into the Kirkintilloch delivery office under new Royal Mail proposals. The Kirkintilloch delivery office does a good job for Kirkintilloch, as the Bishopbriggs office has done for Bishopbriggs, but it is four miles away. I am concerned about the potential impact of that closure, should it go ahead, both for customers—that is to say, members of the public—and staff. The round trip would be around an hour on public transport. Even in a car it would certainly take over half an hour to collect a parcel and get back. That adds a layer of inconvenience for customers who would previously have been able to go to their local delivery office in the town in which they live, at a time that worked for them, to pick up a parcel while running other errands.

Given that people are often not in when the postman or postwoman calls, being able to collect a parcel locally is important. The move will also potentially have negative consequences for staff, and not just in terms of the base moving and the longer journeys, so I want Royal Mail to guarantee that it will not be used to undermine existing jobs in the Bishopbriggs office. There should be guarantees for those workers.

I want to pick up on the Royal Mail’s claim that no inconvenience will be caused; I share the concern of the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood about how it proposes to deal with this issue. It says that it can deliver to other addresses or on a different day. Some individuals have a good relationship with a neighbour whom they know will always be in, so that can certainly work well, but not everybody is in that situation, and the neighbour may be out when the delivery arrives.

Delivery on a different day sometimes makes sense. It might be fine if someone who works Monday to Friday and is out when Royal Mail tries to deliver a parcel on Thursday says, “Can you deliver it on Saturday?”, but for many people that is inconvenient. Royal Mail ought to be thinking much more proactively, even if some closures do go ahead. I certainly hope that it will think again in the case of Bishopbriggs. Given that it is looking at the issue, it ought to be more proactive in looking at networks of local collection points. That could be of benefit not only in areas where there are potential changes to delivery offices, but much more widely.

I am aware of a programme called Royal Mail local collect, which I understand is fairly new, whereby local post offices can be used and chosen as a collection point. That has its merits, as far as it goes, but it seems to me that that option can be chosen only when making the online purchase. If Royal Mail has that system already in place, why can it not be offered as an option to people who are not in when the delivery arrives? Instead of choosing for it to be delivered on a different day or to a different address, they could choose for it to be delivered to their local post office. That would be helpful not only in places where delivery offices close, but for many people in rural communities, which the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) mentioned.

Many people will have a post office that is much closer to where they live than their nearest delivery office. That is an obvious potential solution that has not been properly explored. Clearly, there would be some cost to Royal Mail, and there would be a potential income stream for the Post Office, which I am sure it would welcome and would help it improve its sustainability. The relationship between post offices and the Royal Mail has been strong over many years, so it strikes me that that really ought to be explored further. Although there might be a cost to the Post Office, it is important to note that there is, of course, a cost to every failed delivery that Royal Mail tries to undertake.

I appreciate that other hon. Members want to speak and that we have been slightly waylaid by Divisions. I have been raising these issues with Royal Mail and I hope that the Minister will do likewise. The Government have sold off the last public stake in the Post Office—the 30%, which I think should still have been maintained because the Government should have a public stake in Royal Mail. None the less, the Minister still has influence and is able to meet with Royal Mail’s senior management. I very much hope that she will take these points, and the others that have been made in this debate, strongly and forcefully to Royal Mail.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Margot James]

If the hon. Gentleman means Crown post offices, I understand his point. Many of those post offices are being franchised to other retail outlets, but some of those outlets are more convenient for customers. That point should not be lost on him.

While I am addressing the Post Office, which is not the subject of this debate, I will take up the point made by the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally). I am not aware of the closure at the moment of any Royal Mail distribution centre in Falkirk, so perhaps he will provide the details. As far as I am aware, there is not one closing in Falkirk. He talked about the closure of post offices up and down the country. That simply is not the case. I will send him the statistics for post offices opening, rather than closing, around the country. The total numbers bear out what I am saying.

[Jo Swinson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Margot James]

I will one last time, as I am aware of the clock ticking.

[Jo Swinson]

I appreciate the Minister’s giving way, and she is of course right that, as the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) mentioned, there were a significant number of post office closures under the Labour Government. That was halted, but that is exactly why it is a good network. I urge the Minister to ask Royal Mail not to put barriers in the way of people using the network, such as the 70p additional charge for consumers. Surely there must be a solution, given that Royal Mail is trying to save some costs. It is a small amount of money that might go to the post office, and if we save consumers from having to shell out, it would be more of a success.

[Margot James]

As the hon. Lady knows, I am not responsible for the operational aspects of Royal Mail, but I shall put that to its management. It is appropriate that she has raised the matter of costs, as I was just coming on to that; it is important that we appreciate why business transformation is necessary.

Efficiency is a key component of ensuring the financial sustainability of the universal obligation. Price increases are not a long-term solution, particularly in such a competitive market. We have already heard that the market for letters has declined by 40%. The market for parcels, while buoyant, is highly competitive. At the time of the 2008 Hooper review, Royal Mail was estimated to be 40% less efficient than international comparators. Since the Postal Services Act 2011 Royal Mail has spent more than £1 billion on its transformation programme. In 2010 only 8% of Royal Mail letters were sorted by machine, compared with 85% for leading EU operators. The investment that Royal Mail has made has closed the gap and increased automation of letter sorting to more than 80%. Ofcom has found that those investments have improved efficiency.