Post Office Card Account

Debate between Sarah Newton and Alan Reid

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) on securing this debate on the important issue of the Post Office card account and on presenting a good case on behalf of our communities. After spending nine years in opposition to a Government who were clearly urban based, it is a pleasure to be part of a Government who understand rural communities.

The coalition agreement includes a commitment to post offices and to making them the front office of government. For that to happen, they have to be financially underpinned so that they can provide a large number of basic services, including the Post Office card account. The importance of POCA to post offices derives not only from the income that sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses get from it, but from the fact that customers collect their money from the post office and then spend it in the shop. In rural villages in a constituency such as mine, there is often just the one shop and the post office is an important part of that shop. Without the post office, the shop would not be sustainable.

My hon. Friend talked about the need for joined-up government and for all Departments to support the post office. Given the structure of government in this country, there is clearly a temptation for Ministers to engage in silo thinking and to be concerned only about their own Department. Although the Government inherited a terrible financial mess from their predecessors and the pressure is on Ministers to make savings in their own Departments, it is important that our Ministers do not pat themselves on the back for making savings in their own Department at the expense of other Government Departments. The Post Office is a case in point. We need all Government Departments to support the Post Office.

When I came back to Parliament after the election, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the previous Government had issued tenders to replace green giros, which brought in a lot of money to post offices. People in rural areas were particularly dependent on such a service because it meant that they had a place in their own community to cash their green giros. When the new Government came in to office, they had to deal with the fact that the tender had been drawn up by the previous Administration, which greatly restricted their room for manoeuvre. I was further disappointed when the contract was awarded to PayPoint. Although there are a lot of PayPoint outlets in my constituency, they are all in the towns, and large rural parts of my constituency have no PayPoint outlet. There is no PayPoint outlet in the rural parts of north Argyll. There are about half a dozen in shops in Oban, but nothing outside.

[Sarah Newton]

I can echo my hon. Friend on that point. We have the same problem with access to PayPoint in parts of Cornwall. However, does he not agree that we should take some reassurance from the fact that the Government have said that people who currently receive the green giros will be given advice on their options, including signing up for a Post Office card account? I will work with my rural post offices to put up posters in branches so that as people cash in their green giros for the last time, they are encouraged to apply for a Post Office card account.

[Mr Reid]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that customers who use the green giros must be given the option of using POCA and must be encouraged to do so. I hope that this Government’s attitude towards POCA will be very different from that of the previous Government. Those of us who were MPs in the 2001 Parliament were inundated with complaints from constituents who were badgered and bullied by the Department for Work and Pensions call centre to move away from POCA to the banks. As I say, I hope that this Government will have a completely different attitude to POCA and that its use will be marketed positively rather than actively discouraged, as was the case under the previous Government.

There is a lack of PayPoint outlets in the rural parts of north Argyll, and there are several islands in my constituency that do not have a PayPoint outlet. Every time I mention PayPoint in a debate, I am conscious of the fact that a few days later a letter comes in from PayPoint saying what a wonderful service it provides. I say now to the person from PayPoint who will read the Hansard report of this debate that PayPoint still does not have outlets in rural north Argyll or on several of the islands in my constituency.

As we are discussing green giros, it is important to remember that many people who use them are people who were unable to use POCA for disability reasons. When my hon. Friend the Minister responds to the debate, I hope that he can tell us what facilities will be made available to people with disabilities who were previously deemed unable to use POCA to make it easier for them to access POCA. For example, if they live on a small island without a PayPoint outlet, what are they to do?

One of the lessons to be learned from the green giro contract is the importance of Government consultation before contracts go out to tender. When some of my hon. Friends and I attempted to lobby Ministers to give the green giro contract to the Post Office network, we were told the standard line that all Ministers in any Government use—that once a contract is out to tender and a legal process is under way, Ministers cannot engage in discussions about it. It is therefore important that we consult before contracts are put out to tender rather than, as was the case with the green giro contract, only finding out after the contracts have been put out to tender.

Of course, my hon. Friend the Minister has a responsibility to run his Department as efficiently as possible and to save as much money as possible. However, any savings that are made should not be at the cost of making the problems of financial exclusion worse. I understand that one of his remits is to be the Minister with responsibility for financial inclusion. If the only place in a rural community where people can access cash is a village post office and that post office closes, we will see real financial exclusion. Although pensioners may have bus passes that allow them free bus travel, in a rural community in the highlands there are not that many buses. Even on the days on which the buses run, it is often the case that there is only one bus from a village to a town at 9 am and there is only one bus back at 5 pm. What is a pensioner on a low income to do if they go into a town on the 9 am bus to collect their pension from the post office and they have to wait until 5 pm for the bus back?

[Mr Reid]

Yes. The hon. Lady makes a very important point, because the post office has a certain privacy that, say, a PayPoint outlet—I might as well say “PayPoint”, because I will get a letter about it anyway—in a filling station rarely has. Also, the staff who work at the checkout in a supermarket or filling station do not have the training that the post office staff have. That is another very important point.

[Sarah Newton]

Does my hon. Friend accept that staff in local post offices, such as those in villages in my constituency, know the regulars who come in, particularly elderly or vulnerable people? They can help those people if they have forgotten their PIN numbers; I am sure that that goes against the regulations, but it is a vital thing that they can do. They also notice if Mrs Smith or Mrs Jones does not come along. That sets off an alarm, and they either go round themselves or they ask other people to check on them. That is a vital social service for elderly people and people with disabilities in many of our villages.

[Mr Reid]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope that the Minister and other Ministers will bear it in mind when they consider the importance of post offices.

The Government have a commitment to the Post Office network, as set out in the coalition agreement:

“We will give Post Office card account holders the chance to benefit from direct debit discounts and ensure that social tariffs offer access to the best prices available.”

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can tell us what progress the Government have made towards achieving that objective in the coalition agreement.

In conclusion, post offices are very important to our rural communities. As I have said, the post office often underpins the only shop in a village and there will be all sorts of problems for villagers, particularly elderly people on low incomes, if post offices close. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will agree that it is worth the Government spending money or perhaps giving up the opportunity to make some savings to retain the Post Office network in such areas. That means supporting Government services through the Post Office network and, crucially, it means that when the present POCA contract runs out in 2015 its successor is a post office-based product, and hopefully one that offers even more services than POCA offers at the moment. The successor to POCA must be a post office-based product. Otherwise elderly people on low incomes in our rural communities will really suffer.