Local Post Offices

Lord Lisvane Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Lisvane (CB)]

My Lords, I hope not to take up all of the luxurious 10 minutes which we have been allotted. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hain—in view of our happy working relationship in a former life, I hope that I may call him my noble friend—for providing this opportunity. I shall not follow his comprehensive, powerful and compelling speech, with most of which I thoroughly agree, because I want to concentrate on those parts of the country which are most marginal in terms of not only post office provision but other services.

I take as my example the County of Herefordshire, where I live. I should declare that I am a deputy-lieutenant of the county and Chief Steward of the City of Hereford—although I am glad to say that in modern times that post is almost entirely ceremonial—and that my wife is about to become high sheriff of the county. Herefordshire has one of the lowest population densities in England. Two-thirds of the county are among the 25% most deprived areas in England, measured by geographical barriers to services. Average income is below both regional and national averages. In addition, Herefordshire’s population is older than the national profile, with one in five people aged 65 or above, as opposed to one in six nationally.

The criteria set out in the Post Office’s consultation, which closed at the end of last year, were that 99% of the population should live within three miles of a post office and 90% should live within one mile. The village in which I live is small—the entire parish has a population of 70—but it is five miles from the nearest permanent post office, and one would have to travel five miles further away again before getting to an alternative permanent post office. I must acknowledge that there is a mobile post office in the pub in the next village, but it is open for only two hours on only two days a week.

It is welcome that the Post Office and the Government have affirmed that the post office network will not fall below 11,500 offices, but of course, this is against the background of the savage reductions of 2008, in which some 1,500 post offices were lost, and the overall loss over the decade 2000-10 of about 4,500 post offices—reductions which bore disproportionately on the most rural areas. It used to be said—the noble Lord, Lord Hain, touched on this in his speech—that you could tell a viable village community by the eight Ps test: parish church, pub, policeman, provisions—that is, a village shop—primary school, petrol, phone and post office. In the age of mobiles, the phone is probably no longer relevant, but it is depressing to see how many village communities no longer meet many of those criteria. In our case, we used to meet all of them, apart from having a policeman five miles away, but we now meet only one: we still have a parish church. One of those we lost was a post office.

Post offices cannot be seen in isolation. They are—especially, perhaps when operated from a village shop—crucial to community and communication. Without such community hubs, the life will go out of a village. The elderly and the less mobile—perhaps people who cannot afford a car—will move away, as will others, economic activity will reduce and the village will become yet another statistic in the spiral of deprivation which constantly threatens rural communities.

If the Government’s thinking is to be truly joined up, as I am sure the Minister will acknowledge, they need to recognise that relatively small expenditure of public money in sustaining rural communities and stabilising their populations can save many millions in social care and housing which result from moves towards urban centres, to say nothing of savings in the environmental costs of transport. So, for example, the suggestion by the Association of Convenience Stores of improving remuneration for those taking on a post office business should receive serious consideration, as should increased investment in mobile post offices, which act as a sort of force multiplier.

I end with one particular form of development that may address two problems. Here I should make a second declaration: my wife is a Church of England priest and chairman of our diocesan board of finance, and I am a churchwarden. My distinguished friend and neighbour in Herefordshire, Sir Roy Strong, has a great love for and understanding of parish churches. At the same time, he has also been an extremely effective and imaginative advocate for increasing their use for secular purposes while safeguarding their use for worship. I will give your Lordships one outstanding example that could serve as a model for many others. Yarpole, just on the Herefordshire side of the border with Shropshire, lost its village shop 10 years ago. The parish church now houses in its nave the community shop and, crucially, the post office, with a cafe in the gallery above. The footfall is constant and significant, with car journeys greatly reduced. There are five part-time paid staff, including the postmaster, and 60 volunteers. The now ecclesiastically housed post office plays a key part in a vibrant rural community.

I would be very grateful if Ministers could focus their minds on how such enterprises might be encouraged and how villages and parochial church councils who want to move in this direction might access the relatively modest sums needed to make a church suitable for this sort of additional use. The conventional sources such as lottery funds have too many other calls upon them and, in any event, their focus is not on the most rural areas or small populations, which is just where the need is greatest.

I would entirely understand it if the Minister were not able to respond in detail today but I would appreciate the opportunity of meeting with her at a later stage. I suggest that the prize of sustaining marginal rural communities and their post offices, and at the same time breathing new life into our great heritage of parish churches, is a win-win, and one that I heartily commend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Buscombe]

And then of course we will write to the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and copy all other noble Lords.

[Lord Lisvane]

I am so sorry to keep the Minister from her peroration for a moment or two longer, but I wonder if I might take her back to the question of tendering for partner organisations. As she will know, it is perfectly normal practice in any tender to weight the criteria. I think we would be grateful for an assurance that in the case she quoted, the synergies that can be made for the benefit of local communities are appropriately weighted in the tender process.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I absolutely understand where the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, is coming from. Again, I will talk about that issue and that point with my colleague in another place, Margot James. Thank you for raising it.

The government investment—