Local Post Offices

Maureen Burke Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Maureen Burke (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for securing this very timely debate on the future of post offices. Sadly, few of us have come here today with positive experiences; instead, alongside our constituents, we are concerned about the declining presence of post offices in our communities. In recent times the Post Office has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, with no worse example than the Horizon IT scandal—a shameful, unforgivable wrong done to 900 postmasters, which undermined public faith in the service.

However, public faith in the Post Office has been betrayed in other ways too. The recent speculation on the future of directly managed branches has caused genuine panic and concern to my constituents. I appreciate efforts by the Post Office to reassure people that no formal decision has yet been made, but I fully understand why so many of my constituents believe that closure or service reduction is inevitable. So many post offices have already shut their doors across the UK as the directly managed branch model has been replaced, and that shift towards franchising has left many communities fearing that the post office is no longer a permanent fixture in their high streets or shopping centres. That is because what was once a simple public service has increasingly had its future decided by profitability, rather than the needs and demands of the community, and yet for my constituents, the post office is more than just a place to send parcels and letters; it represents a trusted and valued institution. That is why the Post Office has been around for nearly 400 years.

When Post Office officials emailed me to say that directly managed branches were flawed because they had “no retail offering”, it felt as though there was a disconnect between those who use the service and those who manage it. The No. 1 duty of the post office should be to provide a public service. Whether retail offerings are available in addition should be a secondary consideration, not something motivating the closure or outsourcing of these branches.

Given the news that WH Smith, which manages around 200 post offices, is looking to sell all its high street stores, the franchising model ought to be reviewed as a matter of urgency. I was already concerned about the future of our post offices, but this news only compounds my fears. As with the directly managed branches, my thoughts are with those employed in the WH Smith branches, who will be feeling anxious about what this news means for them. Post Office officials have confirmed that they are in talks with relevant trade unions regarding the ongoing consultation, but I sincerely hope that those are genuine discussions and that the concerns of the workforce are listened to carefully.

In an area such as Springburn, which already has a high unemployment rate, it would be unacceptable for local jobs to be lost. The Springburn Crown post office is the last directly managed branch in my constituency. It occupies a space in Springburn shopping centre, which is well connected and well used by people across the north-east of Glasgow. I recently met the community group Spirit of Springburn to discuss the future of the Crown post office. The community are rightly worried about what closure would mean and raised with me their concerns about the detrimental impact it would have on not just Springburn but the wider north-east of Glasgow. They reminded me that not long ago, the Springburn area had four bank branches. All those branches have now closed—a familiar story in constituencies across the UK, as the last Government presided over 9,500 bank branch closures. Those closures caused massive damage to our high streets and shopping centres and made banking much more difficult for too many. When those closures occurred, the post office was always designated as the place for people to continue to access their bank. In fact, when Lloyds bank announced yesterday plans to close its own high street stores, it said that people should go to the post office to continue using banking services, but how can people do that if there are no local post offices left?

The reality is that Springburn Crown post office really is the last bank in town, and now even that is at risk. It is profoundly unfair for my constituents to find themselves in this worrying situation, and they deserve urgent reassurance that Springburn post office will not close. That is the appeal I am making to the Government today, and it is also the case being made by the local community. Indeed, the vice-chair of Spirit of Springburn, Emma Porter, has written to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade to do just that—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. The hon. Lady will recognise that she was on a time limit, and in order to accommodate all the other Members who wish to speak, I am going to reduce it to five minutes. I call Matt Vickers.