Post Office Green Paper

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Before we begin the next statement, I remind the Front Benchers that there are time limits on each of their statements. In particular, the Liberal Democrats tend to be running over.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

indicated dissent.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I know—not the present Front-Bench spokeswoman, but they have been all afternoon. Please keep within time limits.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Blair McDougall)]

With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s response to the results of the “Future of Post Office” Green Paper. We published the Green Paper in July, starting a national conversation about the future of the Post Office, an institution that has served every community in every corner of the United Kingdom for generations. More than 2,500 people took the time to respond to the consultation, including postmasters, small businesses, service providers, community groups and members of the public. We also held dedicated discussion groups with postmasters and citizens across the country. I therefore start by thanking every respondent; their views provided a wealth of insight, and have been carefully considered.

I am pleased to announce that we are publishing the Government response to the consultation today. Our response must echo the clear call we heard from respondents. They told us that they want a strong and convenient post office network, built around permanent, full-time and full-service branches that offer a wide range of essential postal, banking and Government services. They want a Post Office that is reliable, modern and transparent, and that puts postmasters at the heart of decision making. As such, I can confirm today that the Government will keep the minimum network size of 11,500 branches and will retain all six geographical access criteria, ensuring that communities across the UK continue to have local and reliable access to postal services, including rural and remote areas.

Alongside maintaining the network requirements, we are introducing a new requirement that at least 50% of the network must be full-time and full-service branches. This requirement sets 50% as an absolute minimum, and we expect the Post Office to continue to operate substantially above it. We are setting this requirement to ensure that the full-time, full-service branches remain the backbone of the network for the foreseeable future, as those are the branches that deliver the greatest social value and the strongest customer service. At the same time, we are not blind to the challenges facing the Post Office, and have built in an evidence-based process so that we know when it is the right time for Government to look at the post office network again.

However, stability requires investment. That is why over the next two years, the Government will provide up to £483 million to support the transformation of the Post Office, on top of network subsidy funding to support the costs of delivering Government policy, which will be £70 million in financial year 2026-27. This investment funding will modernise branches across the country. It will support new in-branch technology and the delivery of new products and services that will make sure the Post Office can do what its customers need it to do, while keeping its identity and its role at the centre of so many UK high streets. The funding will also enable a major technology transformation programme within the next five years that will transition operations away from Fujitsu and ultimately replace the Horizon system. Postmasters must be able to trust the technology that they use; it should make their jobs easier and help them spend their time doing what they do best, which is serving their local communities. The days of the Post Office relying on outdated systems must end, and this programme lays the ground for a modern, resilient and fit-for-purpose organisation.

The consultation reinforces the importance of the Post Office for post, of course, but also for banking and access to Government services. I would like to address some specific points about each of those areas. First, on postage, respondents told us that they value the Post Office as a multi-carrier parcel hub and want more choice and convenience in how parcels are sent and received. We will support the Post Office’s efforts to innovate in this space while ensuring that essential services remain accessible.

Secondly, on banking, the public were clear that the Post Office plays a critical role in ensuring communities have access to cash and in-person banking. Being able to access essential banking services such as cash withdrawals and deposits is valuable to many Post Office customers, in particular small businesses, and respondents expressed an appetite to increase their offer. Last month, the Government held discussions between the Post Office and the banking sector to explore where they may be able to work together on a commercial and voluntary basis to better meet the needs of individuals and businesses. Those discussions were based around areas of mutual interest such as banking services, financial inclusion, modernisation, and the importance of continuing to improve financial crime safeguards. Those conversations are ongoing.

Finally, on Government services, colleagues will know that many services have moved online. However, respondents told us strongly that vulnerable, digitally excluded and rural customers continue to rely on the Post Office for in-person services. In that spirit, we have established a cross-Government group to look at developing a common physical front door for Government services, expanded assisted digital support, and new propositions such as prescription collection and identity verification.

At the heart of the Green Paper and of today’s Government response is the need to strengthen the relationship between the Post Office and postmasters. The Horizon scandal was one of the worst miscarriages of justice in modern British history, and while the Government remain focused on delivering redress to victims as rapidly as possible, we must also ensure that the culture that enabled those wrongs can never return. The Post Office has already taken steps to rebuild trust, including the postmaster panel, a new consultative council, embedding postmasters in key teams at the Post Office’s head office, and the election of postmaster non-executive directors to the board.

However, we agree with respondents that more is needed. As such, I can confirm today that the Post Office will develop a culture strategy with measurable objectives that covers employees, postmasters, strategic partners and customers. The Government expect that plan to be in place by this summer. To ensure that these reforms genuinely meet the needs of postmasters, the Government have commissioned an independent external evaluation of the initiatives the Post Office has implemented to strengthen postmaster engagement, which will report later this year.

Our long-term goal is a Post Office that is financially sustainable, adaptable to changing markets and less reliant on Government funding, but this transition must be responsible and realistic. Respondents were clear that stability comes first, particularly while the Horizon inquiry continues. That is why the Government will provide £37 million of funding to the Post Office in the next financial year to support with the costs of administering redress and responding to the inquiry. While the Green Paper explored long-term governance ideas such as mutualisation or a charter model, the Government will not make any decisions on structural reform until after the final report of Sir Wyn Williams’ inquiry. In the meantime, we will work with the Post Office to ensure that the organisation demonstrates financial discipline, generates a trading profit by 2030, and continues to reduce reliance on taxpayer subsidy while protecting access for communities that depend on it.

This Green Paper process and the thousands of responses we received show the enduring importance of the Post Office to the life of this country. The Government’s response sets a clear direction: we are maintaining a strong and accessible network, backing postmasters through major investment and cultural reform, modernising services for a digital age, and setting the Post Office on a path towards long-term financial and operational stability. The Post Office must be modern, resilient and trusted, shaped by the communities it serves and built around the people who run it. With today’s response, we take a major step towards that future.

I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Blair McDougall]

My hon. Friend has made some important points, particularly about the smaller post offices which, as he says, are often the ones that struggle and may be less able to invest directly to tackle some of their problems. The money that we are putting into network transformation is important because it can enable those that may be struggling at the moment to become viable businesses. Just before the end of last year, Treasury Ministers and I chaired a banking roundtable. As my hon. Friend says, we are talking about a voluntary relationship, but all the banks recognise the critical importance of the post offices and of access to banking services for their customers, especially in the light of recent high street bank closures. That recognition is, obviously, shared by the Government.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Sarah Olney]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, and I promise to set a good example for colleagues by keeping my response brief.

As the Minister has laid out, the responses to the consultation underscored the importance of post offices as community hubs that provide vital services, not least to NHS patients through the delivery of important medical correspondence. Some 99.7% of the population live within three miles of a post office, and 4,000 of these branches are open seven days a week. That is an increasingly important statistic, given the rapid closure of high street services such as banks over the past decade. The Minister has said that at least 50% of the network must be full-time and full-service branches. Many people rely on the post office to provide vital services, so can the Minister confirm that we will not see a reduction in the number of full-time branches and that he will ensure that opening hours continue to meet the needs of working people?

The Minister also referred to the important community banking service that post offices provide, but he did not provide specific assurances to the House about other services provided by the Post Office, such as Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency services and Passport Office services. He mentioned expanded digital services, but these will not help many of our constituents who live in remote areas with poor broadband access or difficult phone service access. Can he provide a commitment that the Post Office will continue to provide physical services for people who will have difficulty accessing DVLA and passport services digitally? Can he confirm that these will remain in post office branches beyond March 2026, and will he commit to multi-year contracts, in particular with the DVLA?