Future of the Post Office

Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Monday 18th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

My Lords, like the Minister, I believe in the Post Office. I see its future as a network of essential hubs spread throughout the country, holding communities together and giving people the chance to do their banking, to meet on a social basis, and to interact with the Government, other agencies and more services, including healthcare. That future would build up the country’s resilience. If that is right, should we not be expanding the network rather than reducing it?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

First, I pay tribute to the noble Lord for all the work he has done on this over the years. Nobody knows the challenges better than he does, and I absolutely agree: there is potentially a rosy future for post offices in exactly the way he described—as a network of basic service provision hubs, in addition to the banking hubs that we also see expanding. We need to ensure that we get the finances of this right, but we can all see the potential of the Post Office network to provide far more than it already does. It can provide a community hub, in the way that we were just talking about, but also a public service hub. Particularly as we move towards a lot of services being digital and online, post offices will have a role to provide for people who are digitally excluded in some way, so that they have that point of contact and a person can help them access those services, face to face. They have an essential role in the future, in the way that the noble Lord talked of.