Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Smith Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten the extra investment that Nissan has announced, and the extra investment that has been announced by a number of other car manufacturers. He and his colleagues were very clear in opposing the measures that we took in the Budget, including measures that backed investment in the automotive sector, and they set out no plans to pay for that investment. I gently encourage him to reflect a little further on the mistakes that his party made in government, which have caused some of the problems that we are having to sort out now.

[Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)]

11. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of Post Office closures on local communities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Gareth Thomas)]

The Post Office has the freedom to operate the branch network within the parameters set by the Government. We protect the network by setting minimum access criteria so that, in urban and rural areas, everyone has easy access to their nearest post office. Those criteria ensure that however the network changes, services remain within local reach of all citizens.

[Rebecca Smith]

The community of Plymstock in my constituency saw its main post office close in September 2021, when Morrisons closed more than 80 of its newsagents across the country; the post offices were essentially collateral damage. Despite the best efforts of the community, my predecessor and councillors—including me, at the time—since the Post Office has downgraded the franchise on offer from main branch to post office local, it has been impossible to secure an operator due to the financial unviability of the model. Yesterday, the final local branch announced that it will close later in the year. What is the Minister doing to ensure that sustainable joint post office and banking services replace closing branches in constituencies like mine?

[Gareth Thomas]

We have supported the Post Office in taking measures to increase sub-postmaster pay, to make it a more attractive profession to come into, in order to deal with precisely the issues that the hon. Member set out. She will understand that I do not have specific knowledge of the issues around the post office in her constituency, but I am always happy to challenge the Post Office on constituency issues, so if she would like to write or speak to me about this afterwards, I would be happy to look at the issue in more detail.