Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Mhairi Black Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

I am not funded by unions—or Russia—so before I even get on to the Bill, it is important for me to highlight the fact that the laws on trade unions in the UK are already among the most restrictive in Europe. Ministers claim that such Bills are common in France, Spain and Germany, but they leave out the fact that this Bill is much harsher than any of the examples that they cite. UK workers will lose their automatic protection from unfair dismissal, for instance. Ministers also claim that the Bill is about ensuring that a minimum level of service is available for the health and safety of the public, when they know fine well that life-and-limb agreements are already in place.

The truth is that this Bill is designed to undermine and attack both workers’ rights and democracy. It carves out yet another door through which Westminster can further erode and undermine the Scottish Parliament. It is so bad that it might fall foul of the European convention on human rights, which protects the right of workers to assemble as they wish—the very same convention that the Tories want to take us out of. I wonder why.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Are we not seeing a pattern of behaviour? When the Government could not reach the child poverty targets, they scrapped them. What they are doing now is moving the goalposts and introducing a hostile environment and hostile legislation to attack workers’ rights and human rights.

[Mhairi Black]

Absolutely—and that leads me neatly to my next point.

I have previously spoken about the dangers of sleepwalking into fascism if we are not careful. I did not say it lightly then and I do not say it lightly now, but history is undeniable. The slide into authoritarian and anti-democratic politics has always been underpinned by anti-trade union rhetoric. Over the years, we have listened to countless right-wing politicians and Governments claiming that Brexit would in no way affect workers’ rights, yet here we are.

The reason trade unions organise industrial action is that it works. It has always been the only language that those who hold power understand. The only reason any worker has any rights at all is the existence of trade unions, and the ability of workers to organise collectively in defence of their jobs and their livelihoods. People who bleat about the disruption that strike action causes are missing the point entirely. If your day is disrupted by someone not turning up to their job, it just goes to show how crucial that person’s job is, and why their pay and conditions should reflect that.

There is another myth that I have heard. In fact, people do not undertake strike action lightly. Strikers lose money. Strike action indicates a crisis. Our nurses, doctors, teachers, cleaners and supermarket workers are the very people who have kept the world turning through a global pandemic, a cost of living crisis and 13 years of Tory austerity, but this Government choose to ignore and demoralise them at every turn. This Government would rather blame striking workers than acknowledge the fact that the root causes of strike action lie directly at their door. We have the lowest pensions and sick pay in Europe, we still do not have a living wage and we are living in economic chaos, with inequality getting worse.

The only people who are putting the health and safety of the public at risk are the members of this Government —a Government run for Twitter; a Government of clicks and culture wars, with no serious answers. Ultimately, trade unions work, and that is exactly why the Tories are going after them.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call Clive Efford.

Draft Warm Home Discount (Scotland) Regulations 2022

Mhairi Black Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2022 General Committees

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

I want to clarify that the powers to design and set the budget for the warm home discount scheme are reserved to the UK Government. As far as suggestions go, the Scottish Government can make them until they are blue in the face, but if the UK Government say no, then unfortunately that’s that.

To keep it brief, the SNP will support this SI today. We are glad that something is being done, but given that Scotland is due to experience the second highest levels of fuel poverty after Northern Ireland, with roughly 73% of households expected to be in fuel poverty by January next year, it is clear that we need to do an awful lot more. While we welcome the SI, we would love to see the Government build on it and actually make a lot of decisions to benefit people and get them out of this fuel poverty.

[Greg Hands]

I thank the members of the Committee who have made some fair points in support of the scheme. If I hear it correctly, the scheme has support right the way across the Committee, which is very welcome. Let me deal with some of the points that arose in the debate.

The hon. Member for Southampton, Test always lives up to the name of his constituency, with a set of testing questions. First, are the Scottish Government happy with the proposal? Yes, we have shared and agreed the proposals in the consultation and in this SI. He rightly asked about the reconciliation regulations; I know that he reads these things assiduously, as a good Opposition spokesman should. The reconciliation regulations are being prepared and the process will run to the same timetable as in previous years.

The hon. Gentleman asked why there are differences between England and Wales and Scotland, and I will come back to that in response to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South. The warm home discount scheme overall is devolved, but there are reserved aspects within it. The main reason why there are differences is the difference in the databases. The reforms that have been carried out in England and Wales this year, which we debated as part of an SI in the spring, could not be implemented in Scotland in the same way. That is because the Valuation Office Agency holds data on all households in England and Wales but not in Scotland, where the data is held by local assessors. Therefore, we have a fair amount of the overall annual funding for the warm home discount scheme in Scotland and we are implementing a continuation of the current scheme, as specifically requested by Scottish Government Ministers.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South is not right to say that the warm home discount scheme is reserved. A couple of aspects of it are reserved, including approving any scheme for Scotland; she is right in that sense. However, I remember the design of the scheme during the negotiation that I did with John Swinney in 2015-16, and the Scotland Act shows that it is clearly a devolved aspect. However, in relation to setting the value of the rebates and setting the supplier participation threshold, because the energy market is essentially a Great Britain-wide market we have to make sure that certain aspects of the scheme have some common characteristics for those who are supplying energy in Scotland, England and Wales. That is why the supplier participation threshold is a reserved aspect.

On fuel poverty, I invite the hon. Lady to have a word with the Scottish Government, because she knows that fuel poverty is devolved. There are different ways of calculating fuel poverty in Scotland. If she has a particular problem with fuel poverty data in Scotland she may be better connected to the Scottish Government than I am, and she may feel better placed to make that representation to the SNP-led Government in Edinburgh.

[Mhairi Black]

Would the Minister accept that the idea of fuel poverty in Scotland is itself ridiculous, given that Scotland provides more energy for the whole of the UK than anywhere else does?

[Greg Hands]

The hon. Lady tempts me to go down the road of a wider debate. I am always happy to take on the SNP in any forum, but I point out the big advantages that we have with the Great Britain-wide electricity and energy market: the degree of depth and breadth, not forgetting that a huge amount of our new energy is being supplied not just off the coast of Scotland, but from England and the Celtic sea; our nuclear capabilities; and all of the things that bring a Great Britain-wide approach to energy.

Although energy efficiency measures provide long-term assistance in reducing energy bills—we recently increased the size of the Great Britain-wide energy company obligation scheme to over £1 billion per annum—there remains a clear need for direct financial support now. The Government have implemented the largest expansion of the warm home discount scheme across Great Britain since it began in 2011. In 2021-22, the spending envelope was worth £354 million. In 2022-23, that is rising to £523 million. In Scotland, that will ensure that 280,000 low-income and vulnerable households receive a rebate on their energy bill each winter until at least 2026. The Government remain committed to helping low-income and vulnerable households right across Great Britain with heating their homes. That is demonstrated by the Government’s support of over £37 billion with energy bills and the cost of living this year to date, and today by the extension and expansion of the warm home discount in Scotland. Therefore, I ask that the Committee approve the regulations.

Question put and agreed to.

Employment Law: Devolution to Scotland

Mhairi Black Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Westminster Hall

[Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on securing the debate. There are endless merits to devolving employment law to Scotland, but do not fret—I have only chosen a few to discuss today. We could look at unpaid trial shifts, fire and rehire—the list is endless—but what underpins this debate for Scottish workers is that we cannot trust the Government of the day in this place to be progressive and look out for the rights of workers, so we need to devolve employment law to ensure that Scotland can bring forward an employment Bill to look out for Scottish workers.

If employment law were devolved, Scottish workers would have the right to protection against vile tactics such as fire and rehire and unpaid trial shifts—tactics that we have seen deployed on our workforce by profit-making companies just to increase their profits that bit more. They are despicable and unnecessary. This Government and previous Governments could have done something about them, but they have deliberately chosen not to.

We can look at both the rights and the opportunities that are being denied. For example, this Government are denying people the opportunity to recover fully from ill health because the level of sick pay is so woeful that people are going back to work before they should. We are ending up with a workforce who are working while still in ill health. If we devolved employment law, I do not believe that would happen. I state on the record that we should also devolve all social security benefits to Scotland, to ensure that statutory sick pay is adequate, and that people with significant disabilities and ill health are fully supported in their return to work.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

It strikes me as really concerning that part of the new Prime Minister’s reforms seems to be to undermine the one tool that workers have at their disposal, which is striking and industrial action. All the rights that people enjoy, including holidays and sick pay, were brought about not by kindly asking but by striking—by industrial action. Any attempt to undermine that by bringing in agency workers—more colloquially known as scab labour—is appalling and should not be allowed to pass.

[Amy Callaghan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that welcome intervention. The new Prime Minister certainly will have disastrous consequences for the workforce across the United Kingdom. Employment law should be devolved to Scotland, and we should stand up against those vile tactics—especially those against the right to strike—and ensure that our workers are protected from them.

It says a lot about a Government when they are unwilling to protect workers’ rights and, instead, their new leader has pledged to cripple them within her first 30 days as Prime Minister. That is why we need employment law devolved to Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) for bringing the debate forward. When we think of the potential merits of devolving employment law to Scotland, the main one is that the Tories would be nowhere near it. That is the selling point for me and a lot of other people. As we leave the pandemic only to enter a cost of living crisis, it cannot be any clearer how little interest this Government have in the lives of ordinary people. The last 12 years of Tory Government have been nothing more than a project of erosion. Not only is poverty on the rise and has been for years, but in-work poverty is rising, too. People who are working all the hours that God sends still cannot afford to live. Wages have not risen. The UK has the lowest level of sick pay in the OECD, and yet we kid ourselves that we are this great nation—this great United Kingdom—and a beacon for the rest of the world. Well, the stats just do not add up.

If we compare Scotland in the UK to what is happening in similar sized independent nations, we see that it does not have to be like this. Just one example: out of all the workers in the Netherlands, only 6.4% of them are low-wage earners. Of all the workers in Iceland, 7.6% are low-wage earners. Finland has 8.6% low earners and Denmark has 8.7%. In the UK, nearly 20% of all workers are low-wage earners. The countries I just mentioned have fewer people at risk of poverty and in-work poverty. They have fewer employees working extra hours and very long hours. They have a lower gender pay gap. They have sickness benefits that actually cover their wage if they are sick—something unheard of here. They are integrating flexible working patterns and learning from the pandemic, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) said earlier. They are figuring out fairer working practices to move with the 21st century.

[David Linden]

I wonder if my hon. Friend could say whether those countries have “Wheel of Fortune”-style things in the morning where people have to phone in and try to win money for their energy bills? In those countries, do they have former Conservative Cabinet Ministers picking the tinfoil off their head and telling them to put it down the back of their radiators to heat their houses?

[Mhairi Black]

Fortunately, they are spared that horror but, here in the UK, that is where we are at: “This Morning” paying bills. Instead of learning from everything that has happened in the pandemic, and trying to integrate fairer work practices, we have a Government running around leaving passive-aggressive notes on desks, telling people to hurry up and get back, when the Prime Minister—sorry, the last Prime Minister—was nowhere to be seen for weeks. They have shown time and again that they cannot be trusted with workers’ rights. All the way from 1830 right through to now, they have proven time and again that they cannot be trusted.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) mentioned, we had the Taylor review of modern working practices. That was five years ago, and we have heard nothing, because this Government are all about show not substance. The UK has reneged on its promise to protect EU-derived workers’ protections. During the Tory leadership race, the now Prime Minister promised to scrap all remaining EU regulations by the end of 2023. That means that hundreds of laws covering employment and environmental protections will disappear.

Despite the Government’s commitment to an employment Bill on at least 20 occasions, as we have heard from numerous people, it is still nowhere to be seen. I am not talking about little add-ons because we are nice to our workers. I am talking about fundamental rights: how long we need to work, holiday entitlement and sick pay. Those are all fundamental. The UK is being mismanaged into the ground, and has been for a long time.

We heard earlier from the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), who is no longer in her place. She asked whether these arguments meant that changes to rights should apply across the whole of the UK. That is rubbish, because Northern Ireland has devolution of employment law, so why can Scotland not have that? Secondly, there is the idea that we have to wait for reform across the whole of UK. We have been trying. In just the seven years that I have been in this place, my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), who was here earlier, had the fire and rehire Bill talked out by the Government. Colleagues have tried to get rid of unpaid work trials, yet nothing has come from that.

It goes even bigger than that. Scotland has always played its part. We have not voted Tory since 1955. Yet all we get is Tory Prime Minister after Tory Prime Minister making empty promises, delivering nothing. Scotland has played its part and, frankly, I am tired of trying to tell people in Scotland who are being pushed into poverty, “Sorry, you just need to wait for the rest of the UK to get its act together.” No, not any more. If there is one thing we can see, it is that countries of a similar size to Scotland are successful and fairer. The only difference is that they are not governed by Westminster.

[Amy Callaghan]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. To address the earlier intervention by the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), my predecessor, as part of the Lib Dem-Tory coalition Government, slashed redundancy notice from 90 days to 45 days. Does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot rely on this place to look after our workers? Reform is not the answer; that is simply not enough. We need employment legislation devolved to Scotland.

[Mhairi Black]

I could not agree more. My hon. Friend put her point succinctly. To sum up, if you are an average person in the UK right now the chances are that you cannot afford to eat or to heat yourself. You certainly cannot afford to be sick. The one thing that you cannot afford is another Tory Government.

GKN: Proposed Takeover by Melrose

Mhairi Black Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) on securing this debate. I echo many of the comments that have been made. It is clear that there is a consensus that GKN is at the cutting edge of the UK Government’s industrial strategy and plays a key part in that. We have heard that it is involved in sensitive programmes, and that it provides technology for a US defence company. I say that because the Royal Air Force has ordered 138 of the F-35B fighter jets made by that company. That is worth noting. The lifespan of some of those products could be up to 50 years from initial development, and that requires continuous maintenance. We already know that the London-based company Melrose has a record of buying companies, holding on to them for a few years and then stripping them. Given the nature of the technologies we are talking about, it makes no national sense to allow a hostile takeover to happen.

GKN operates in more than 30 countries and has 58,000 employees, including 6,000 in the UK. Even the workers are expressing concerns that a takeover by Melrose could leave the Government’s industrial strategy in tatters and see GKN sold off piecemeal, bit by bit, with jobs cut or shipped abroad. The warnings could not be clearer. Even the Secretary of State for Defence recently said before the Select Committee that he felt it would have been remiss of him to fail to express concerns. The merger could see parts of the business that provide components for military equipment falling below standards. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a US regulator relevant to military implications, must give approval, but GKN has warned that it does not believe that Melrose will be able to obtain that approval within the required time. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) said, we are talking about a potential and unnecessary risk to national security.

Under the Enterprise Act 2002, a number of authorities have the statutory power to intervene in takeovers. The power can, rightly, be exercised only on certain specified grounds. There are three main grounds on which certain authorities can stop takeovers. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy may intervene on the grounds of national security and of financial stability. We have already established that national security is an issue, or at least an argument, but there is also a clear argument for financial stability.

As if the scale of what is at stake were not argument enough to act, flinging in the political chaos and uncertainty surrounding our political future due to Brexit ensures that the stable continuation of a major employer is more important than ever. We only need to look at the pensions aspect. The chief executive of the Pensions Regulator wrote to the Work and Pensions Committee to express grave concerns about the GKN pension scheme. We are trying to promote pensions and to convince people to ensure that they are secure in later life, because we recognise there is ticking time bomb, which could be disastrous, but at the end of December the GKN pensions deficit officially stood at £700 million. GKN warned that Melrose’s intention to ramp up the debt would lower its ability to support the pension scheme. That seems to be totally counterproductive, given the language continually used about pensions in particular.

Surely, before any progress can be allowed, Melrose must submit its takeover plans to the Pensions Regulator to show that the security of the retirement scheme will remain intact, and that is even without all the other arguments I have given. The reality is that the Government have the power, the reasons and the support to act. The question is, do they have the will?

DRAFT National Minimum Wage (Amendment) REGULATIONS 2017

Mhairi Black Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 General Committees

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan, and it is a genuine pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, who made a very good speech setting out our shared views.

We must be clear that the UK Government’s so-called national living wage is not the real living wage and it should not be referred to as such. It is not national, because disgracefully it does not cover under-25s, and it is not a living wage, because it falls well short of the real living wage, which is independently set by the Living Wage Foundation and based on living standards, the history of which was set out so well by the hon. Gentleman. The current real living wage is £8.45 an hour outside London and £9.75 an hour in London. The minimum wage premium rate under discussion is £7.50 an hour, which is a welcome rise from £7.20, but it is almost £1 an hour short of the rate outside London and more than £2 short of that in London.

I also note the proposed percentage pay rise for the different age brackets. The rate for over-25s will go up by 4.2% annually, which is welcome, but why is there not a fair rise across the board, to match that for over-25s? The apprentice rate will go up by 4.5% annually, which is fine, but that is the only special age-related rate that matches the rise for over-25s.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

As hon. Members may know, I am under 25. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be ridiculous to suggest that I should be paid less than anyone else in this room, purely on the basis of when I was born?

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, which highlights perfectly the flaws in the Government’s argument—we will probably hear it shortly—that, somehow, someone who is under 25 does not have the experience or expertise to carry out their job. She personifies the argument that someone who is under 25 can be more than capable of doing their job just as well as, and possibly better than, someone who is over 25. She has made my point perfectly.

Turning to 18 to 20-year-olds, they will get a 0.9% rise of 5p an hour, which is an annual increase of 3.1%, while that for 16 to 17-year-olds will be just 2.8% annually. Given that they are already receiving significantly less, often for doing the exact same work, how can the Government justify a proportionately lower increase in their minimum rates? I refer again to my hon. Friend’s intervention.

This is important. In response to last week’s Budget, Katherine Chapman of the Living Wage Foundation said:

“Low-paid workers will be the worst hit by the rise in inflation set out in today’s budget forecasts.”

Rowena Mason from The Guardian has suggested that the rise in the minimum wage is not enough even to hit the Government’s trajectory to reach £9 an hour by 2020. We also need to consider these rises in the context of what Paul Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies said last week:

“On current forecasts average earnings will be no higher in 2022 than they were in 2007…This is completely unprecedented”.

The Resolution Foundation has said that the period from 2011 to 2020 will have the worst record for pay growth in 210 years.

Although everyone accepts that employment is the best route out of poverty, it is no longer enough. We are seeing sharp rises in in-work poverty as the perfect storm of poor wage growth, social security cuts and rising inflation squeezes family budgets. For our part, Scotland remains the best performing of the four nations in the UK with the highest proportion of employees getting paid the real living wage—79.9%. That is because the Scottish Government have embraced the real leaving wage and championed it. We now have about 750 Scottish-based accredited living wage employers and we are pushing hard for more to sign up. We have championed the real living wage campaign while this Government try to undermine it by labelling their minimum wage premium in such a cynical way.

Requiring employers to pay their staff the living wage is a key part of Scottish public sector pay policy and since 2013-14 we have invested more than £1.5 million a year in the living wage rate across the public sector where the Scottish Government controls the pay bill, benefiting about 3,000 workers each year. I urge the Minister to look at the example being set by the Government up the road and to go further than what is being proposed today.

Backbench Business

Mhairi Black Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I commend the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) for bringing this debate to the forefront today.

As we have heard, post offices clearly provide a lifeblood for so many communities. Sometimes, that is easy to forget in the age of texting and emails, but the fact remains. Paisley has a population of 76,000 people. It is the fifth largest place in Scotland. I know that some Members have spoken about post offices far out in rural areas, but I want to talk a wee bit about urban post offices like one in my constituency. The post office is located in the Piazza, which is one of Scotland’s most successful shopping centres in terms of occupancy levels. Most, if not all, of its units are in use. It has its own security guard service. People feel safe and appreciate the fact that vulnerable customers feel at ease when they go to collect important documents, their money, pension or whatever else. The location is absolutely perfect. It is located straight on the high street, which is right beside the bus stops. The doors and lifts from the car park are literally right beside the post office.

Andy Furey from the CWU, who is here today, told me that Paisley was the golden standard of post offices. It provided a specialist service. It had staff with 20 or 30 years’ experience behind them. It was accessible, and it was spacious. That post office has shut today. As we debate this right now, that post office has closed its doors. That will have devastating consequences for Paisley as a town.

Currently, we are endeavouring and bidding to become the city of culture for 2021, and we are trying to shine a light on the culture and level of community that we have in Paisley. Despite all we have to offer, most would agree that Paisley is not without its problems. We are desperately trying to get the high street reinvigorated and re-energised and to boost the local economy a wee bit, yet at no point was there any consideration or assessment of what damage this closure would have on the high street or the Piazza. My office and I organised a public meeting in Paisley to discuss this. The owners of other units in the Piazza said that they benefited most from the post office because it brought in a large footfall of people who then visit their shops.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

In East Kilbride, we are also fighting to save the Crown post office in our town centre, which is crucial to the local community. If it is sold off, it will not have the specialist staff, the same service or the inclusivity for the most vulnerable. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Post Office must be accountable and that we must retain these valuable assets for our communities?

[Mhairi Black]

I could not agree more. An hon. Member who is no longer in her place—I cannot remember her constituency—highlighted the issue perfectly when she said that in reality we are going to lose people with special skills acquired over 20 or 30 years, who will be replaced by WHSmith staff on the minimum wage who have not had adequate training necessarily.

At the public meeting that I mentioned, the Post Office admitted that it had not considered the economic impact of the post office’s closure. Most concerning are the wider impacts for my constituents. As Members may be aware, quite a few refugees and asylum seekers have been located to Paisley. The post office in the Piazza was the only place where they could realistically have access to the Home Office’s digital application services. Now that it is losing that service, those people will be expected to travel to West Nile Street, nine miles away in Glasgow, with no money or means of travel.

The worst thing about the closure is how little sense it makes. The plan was to move this first-class post office into the wholly inadequate WHSmith—right to the back. There is no clear route from the shop’s front door to the back, which immediately restricts people with mobility problems. It is now situated on a hill, which may not seem like a big deal, but for someone aged 80 it is a considerable challenge. It is located in a pedestrian zone, so you cannot even drop someone off at the door.

At the public meeting, I blessed the folk from the Post Office who had to come along to argue for the change because they were eaten alive. Their figures were wrong and they could not tell us basic facts for ridiculous reasons. They could not tell us whether the post office was making a profit or a loss, or how big the loss was. They could not tell us what the footfall was. It was embarrassing, if I am honest.

We were told that there would be a consultation. Consultations can be a good thing—I am doing one now for my private Member’s Bill—but to be good they have to be genuine. This one seemed to be total lip service. At the end of it, despite the fact that I have genuinely yet to meet anyone in favour of the proposed change, as with so many others we have heard about, the Post Office said that the change would happen anyway.

I know that many healthy suggestions were made—I know because I made many of them—such as that the post office currently has three units in the Piazza, so why not close one or two if they were costing money. The CWU rightly pointed out that, if the Post Office is seeking a franchise partner, the most obvious candidate is surely Royal Mail. It was almost as though it did not matter a jot what suggestions were made because the move was happening. Lo and behold, I then discovered that WHSmith was advertising jobs for the new post office two weeks before the consultation finished. The whole thing was a sham.

I tried repeatedly to have a meeting with the Post Office’s chief exec, but that was refused point blank. My request went backwards and forwards. Eventually, I said, “I will go anywhere at any time for a five-minute meeting. Just tell me when.” There was no reply. The lack of accountability during the process was incredible. The whole thing was a done deal from the start.

In the Chamber a couple of months ago, I asked the Minister how much money had been spent on refurbishing the post office in Paisley since 2010. He said that nearly £500,000 of public funds had been spent doing it up, only for it to be sold off to WHSmith. The reality is that this is privatisation through the back door.

What does WHSmith know about postal services? It is falling behind in terms of quality of service and the different things it sells in its shops. If it is already struggling, what is its motivation for taking on a post office that is apparently haemorrhaging money left, right and centre? Why would it want that post office if it is losing so much money? If the sale of Royal Mail did not result in the expected profit, how will the franchising of post offices be any different?

In June 2015, the Government sold the remaining 30% stake in Royal Mail. The fact is that taxpayers have been short-changed yet again. The Government sold the shares for far less than they were worth. The whole thing stinks and it is off the backs of my constituents and those of every Member here. We must not tolerate it. It is clear that the whole separation has been a massive mistake. The Government must bring both Royal Mail and the Post Office back into the public sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margot James]

I am sorry, but I have to stop shortly to leave time for the hon. Member for Luton North.

As I said earlier, we cannot keep these Crown post offices open and losing money and stick to our commitment to keep post offices open in the rural and semi-rural areas, where often it is the only service left. Really, with some of these Crowns that are closing, walking a short distance away, sometimes to a more convenient location, to a WHSmith, is a small price for customers to pay to keep this network operating across the country, which has not proven to be economic.

[Mhairi Black]

Will the Minister give way?

[Margot James]

I am really sorry not to be able to give way again, but I have got to stop in two or three minutes’ time. I want to answer a couple of points made by the hon. Members for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) and for Harrow West (Mr Thomas).

Use of Government services at post offices is down by 40%, which is disappointing. I do not really foresee a huge improvement in that, because with so many Government services—for instance, on the motor vehicle front—so much is now done online that any operation in that sector would have experienced similar losses. I am much more hopeful about financial services. That sector has grown by 17% since 2012. It is steady, albeit slow, growth year on year. The Post Office has an arrangement with the Bank of Ireland and will be offering more services. Hon. Members have pointed out that bank branches around the country are closing at a swift rate, and that does create an opportunity for the Post Office. I will be lobbying, alongside Members, for the Post Office to embrace this opportunity even further, but I do think that it is doing a good job. I will sound a note of caution that unfortunately—well not unfortunately; it is just a development that we are all part of—more and more banking is now done online as well, but I do see some grounds for hope in that sector.

I want to talk a bit about WHSmith. A great many WHSmith branches are now either hosting or franchising post office services. Virtually all the services remain on offer to the public in convenient locations. I accept that some—a minority, I think, of 11 out of 61—post offices that operate in WHSmith branches are on the first floor. That does present issues for people with disabilities, but they are issues that the WHSmith branches have resolved in conjunction with local groups representing people with disabilities. They have managed to provide lifts and also, in case of lift breakdown, mobile tills so that people with disabilities can be welcomed into the branches.