Post Office Network

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for the Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on securing the debate. It is clear from the turnout and the speeches that hon. Members on both sides of the House have high regard for the post office network.

Our post office network is much more than a network of businesses. Post offices are the lifeblood of our communities and an essential part of our social network. For many people, particularly those who do not have bank accounts or access to the internet, they are the only means of accessing services, withdrawing pensions and paying bills. We all know sub-postmasters who frequently go that extra mile, those who will notice that Mrs Jones has not turned up to collect her pension and will make discreet inquiries to see if anything is amiss.

When we were in government, we established access criteria for the first time, in recognition of the business and social importance of the post office network. The access criteria developed by the Labour Government ensured that 99% of people living in deprived urban areas, and 90% of people nationally, would be within one mile of a post office. That is extremely important, because it provides the access that some of the most vulnerable in our society need. We then put in money to keep open 11,500 post offices, whereas a purely commercial network would have been reduced to some 4,000. We put in £150 million per year up to 2011 to subsidise that network, with an increase to £180 million for 2011-12. We welcome the recent Government announcement that there will be continued support for post offices.

Anyone who runs a business knows that it is necessary to be constantly prepared to change and adapt. Post offices need to attract new customers, and offer new products to existing customers. Sub-postmasters retire and new people come in. When someone first decides to take over the running of a local post office, they need to know that their business will be viable. When sub-postmasters retire, they sometimes decide to keep the premises as their home. That means that newcomers have not only to identify premises and find the funds to start up, but also find the funds to install the counters and facilities to meet post office requirements. To make that sort of commitment they need the confidence that they can make a go of it, and absolutely fundamental to that confidence is the inter-business agreement with Royal Mail. That is why the National Federation of SubPostmasters wants the guarantee of a minimum 10-year agreement signed and sealed between Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. Anything less would be a betrayal. It would be a death sentence hanging over all but the busiest of our post offices.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern about the impact on business start-ups and business innovation. I represent a very rural constituency, and one thing that we have seen over recent years is new businesses springing up and using the internet to sell goods further afield than the isolated rural areas in which they are based. I am very concerned that the loss both of the universal service commitment and of post offices is inhibiting business growth. That will absolutely undermine existing small businesses and disincentivise new ones, not only in the post office network but in the wider rural economy.

[Nia Griffith]

Indeed. The hon. Lady makes reference to the important role of post offices in rural communities, but those very post offices are the ones that would be most threatened if the inter-business agreement were not in place. It is absolutely vital, as the National Federation of Sub-postmasters suggests, that we have some sort of 10-year agreement to guarantee that business.

Proceeding to privatise Royal Mail without such guarantees for Post Office Ltd would also call into question the wisdom of investing considerable sums of taxpayers’ money in a business that had no chance of being viable—a bit like redecorating flood-prone properties without shoring up the flood defences. It is not sufficient for there to be vague assurances and assumptions that somehow Royal Mail would automatically choose Post Office Ltd for its counter services. No astute business person would be satisfied with anything less than protection through written contracts and legislation. The Postal Services Bill does not provide that protection, and the Opposition will be tabling amendments that would provide Post Office Ltd with the necessary certainty that a privatised Royal Mail will continue to use the post office network for its counter services.

It is very worrying to hear the National Federation of SubPostmasters report that the Government are very resistant to its requests for the guarantee of a 10-year agreement. That is no way to treat sub-postmasters who have invested considerable sums of their own money in the local post office network, and it will certainly not encourage new entrants to take over when sub-postmasters retire. That is one area in which the Government can, and should, take action to safeguard the third of Post Office income that derives from Royal Mail.

Furthermore, one in seven rural post offices provides premises, facilities and supervision for Royal Mail delivery staff. Sub-postmasters running the 900 mail-work post offices are paid according to the number of postmen and women they supervise. That pay is frequently about 25% of the income of such post offices. They need a guarantee that the income will continue. There is no guarantee that a privatised Royal Mail, quite possibly owned by foreign interests, would honour or renew the inter-business agreement, and without determined Government action in that respect post offices will lose their core business.

In addition, we need to know what other specific proposals the Government have to increase footfall in our post office network. As I have said, all businesses need to attract new customers and identify new services that will interest their customers. One notable success story is that post offices have become major suppliers of foreign currency.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

: The hon. Lady is setting out a fantastic case as to why the post office network is vital, so will she briefly explain why her Government closed down 7,000 branches?

[Nia Griffith]

I have just explained why we put in money to ensure that 7,500 branches, in addition to the 4,000 commercially viable ones, were in fact kept open. The crucial issue we all have to address, and on which we need answers from the Minister, is how to make those post offices viable so that, in the words of some of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues, the subsidy is not needed for ever and at the end of the day there is a viable business that can survive, and provide the network that we all want.

[Jesse Norman]

rose—

[Nia Griffith]

May I finish, please?

The Labour Government undertook to develop a successor to the Post Office card account, and the contract was awarded to the Post Office. We need specific details from this Government about their vision for such accounts and how their scope could be broadened. We also prepared the way for increasing the range of banking services to be made available through local post offices. Hon. Members might remember that we instigated a consultation, and they might have encouraged their constituents to take part in that last February, and to respond to a survey about the type of banking services they would like to be able to access at their local post office. How do the Government intend to take forward that work, and what specific plans do they have to extend and promote banking services through the post office network? It is not simply a question of making services available at post offices; we cannot turn the clocks back.

In some areas, as few as 7% of women over the age of 65 in lower-income groups have regular access to the internet, but that figure rises to almost 100% among younger men on middle and high incomes, many of whom want and expect to be able to access services online. They are likely, for example, to renew their driving licences at the click of a mouse, rather than in their local post office, even when they might physically call in to the shop that houses the post office to buy snacks or drinks, or to rent a DVD.

In terms of the sub-postmasters’ vision of an enhanced role for post offices as the front-line provider of an expanded range of Government services, what specific plans do the Government have to make that happen? Fine words and lofty aspirations are not enough. Even the straightforward availability of services might not in itself be sufficient. Even the plentiful good will towards post offices that exists in our communities is unlikely, on its own, to increase footfall. How exactly do the Government plan to turn that vision into a queue of real people choosing to carry out business transactions at post office counters?

Local councils can also play a role, but some councils have not always been supportive of the post office network. For example, a couple of years ago, we found hidden away in the small print on the back of council tax demands from my county council plans to cease accepting payments via the post office network. I persuaded councillors to allow representatives of local sub-postmasters to address the full council, and those plans were dropped.

To sum up, we want to hear specifics from the Minister. We want an explicit commitment to protect the inter-business agreement between Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd and to hear specific plans for increased Government use of post offices and developing more business for them. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davey]

I will disappoint my hon. Friend because to answer him would be getting ahead of the statement that we have to make. It will deal with how we want to spend the £1.34 billion and the detailed business case that Post Office Ltd developed. It was not done on the back of a fag packet, as the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) said. Given the amount of detail in the business plan for spending the £1.34 billion, it would have to be a very large fag packet. In the statement, we will also flesh out our vision for the future of the post office network.

I shall try to deal with some of the points made in the debate. The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk was incredibly critical of the Government. He failed to point out that five post offices in his constituency closed during the previous Government’s closure programmes. If he had done that, we might have listened to him with a little more attention. He and the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) commented on the need to write into legislation the number of post offices there must be in Great Britain. I looked at the Postal Services Act 2000 and the previous Government’s 2009 Postal Services Bill, to see what their proposals were. Do you know what, Mr Hollobone? The previous Government made no such proposals at all. No sensible Government would tie down private business in knots of legislation, and we should remember that private businesses run 97% of post offices. Frankly, that sort of approach goes back to old socialist regulation and is not how to modernise the post office network and make it more commercially viable.

[Nia Griffith]

The Minister must realise that clause 3 of our Bill said that the organisation would be publicly owned. That is the difference. If Royal Mail is in majority public ownership, a great deal more can be done to control those details than if the entire business were sold into private—possibly foreign—hands. That is the key difference between our proposals and those in the current Postal Services Bill. I hope that the Minister can answer the sub-postmasters and sub-mistresses who are worried about the viability of their businesses because they cannot see an agreement in the legislation.

[Mr Davey]

Again, the hon. Lady shows that her party does not understand business and certainly does not understand the post office network. The previous Government did not write the inter-business agreement between Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd, and nor should they have; it was an agreement between two separate organisations.