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Mr. Adrian Sanders (Torbay): Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Browning: As it is a Devon Member, I shall give way, but this really is the last time.
Mr. Sanders: It is a helpful intervention. Earlier, the hon. Lady mentioned the suburban fringe. Several hon. Members have spoken about the rural post office network. I should like confirmation that she sees this as a problem that affects urban areas to the same extent. By "urban areas" I mean the inner cities, seaside resorts and towns across the country. There is a danger that, in the absence of such a recognition, people will think, "It is just the rural communities again, harping on about the problems," when in fact it is a matter that should unite rural and urban areas.
Mrs. Browning: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. In my opening remarks, I mentioned the urban fringe. In the summer recess, when I visited many colleagues' constituencies, I made a point of visiting many post offices in the urban fringe. I recall visiting one in Poole, in Dorset, with my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms). Although that post office was well away from the town centre, it obviously served a very large community, many of whom were very elderly, and many of whom were so frail that they could not have taken a bus ride. I am sure that the whole House recognises the importance of such post offices.
Mr. Bercow: Would my hon. Friend allow me?
Mrs. Browning: I must make some progress; I hope that my hon. Friend will understand. With him, I visited a post office in his constituency, and he knows that it was a really excellent small village shop. The people who run it are very worried about their future--not just the post office but the shop is under threat. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but it is not funny if one lives in that village.
I want to remind the House of the statement that the Secretary of State made on the Post Office in July. He said:
"Today's announcement is good news for the Post Office and all those whose livelihoods depend on it, because it can now build for the future with real confidence . . . The White Paper brings an end to the uncertainty that has dogged the Post Office over the last decade: uncertainty over its role and place in society; uncertainty over its long-term viability and ownership . . . and uncertainty over the Post Office network."--[Official Report, 8 July 1999; Vol. 334, c. 1175.]
Seven months later, there has never been more uncertainty about the future of the Post Office network than there is today. That is a direct result of the Government's change of policy, their dithering and their failure to look for
alternative viable policies before announcing a policy change. All that is down to the Government. This is the fourth debate that I have attended on this subject. It is about time that the Minister gave us some clear answers and ended the uncertainty.
8.36 pm
Mrs. Diana Organ (Forest of Dean): As the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) said at the beginning of his contribution, although concern has been expressed on both sides of the House, greater public concern about the future of the 18,000 post offices has been expressed outside the House. In my area, that concern has been fuelled by the Western Daily Press campaign. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mrs. Gilroy) pointed out, that campaign has at times verged on scaremongering, frightening people into believing that they will lose their rural post offices within the next week.
Post offices provide a crucial service in rural areas and, as small businesses, they are vulnerable. Their number has been dwindling. The decline has already been noted to be about 1 per cent. a year over the past 20 years and that is principally due to the Tories' indecision, the Tories' neglect, the threats of privatisation and the Tories' cuts in the opening hours of rural post offices. They explain the majority of closures in those 20 years. We have now reached the stage that, if the rate of closure that went on in the Tory years in rural Gloucestershire continued, we would be left with no rural post offices by 2010.
Like many hon. Members, I have had a meeting with rural sub-postmasters. Many of the points that I wish to make echo their concerns and their fears as to what might happen to them come 2003. However, as well as their concerns, they voiced what they consider to be the opportunities and the challenges that they can meet.
In rural areas, the post office is often linked most successfully with the village shop. It is often the only centre in the rural community. In April 1998, the Government introduced a very worthwhile rebate of 50 per cent. on the council tax for a shop in a rural parish with fewer than 3,000 people if it is the only shop. That was a good move to support rural post offices. They also added in that measure the ability for a discretionary extra 50 per cent. rebate and Forest of Dean district council has offered that in response to moves from the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters.
Such extra support is very welcome in rural areas, but that local authority, which has supported post offices in the long term, has recently sent letters to people who pay their council tax over the post office counter to suggest that they might like to pay by direct debit. It says that that will be cheaper. It may be; in the short term there will be savings for the local authority. However, the change could cause long-term damage to the Post Office. If the local authority is to support rural post offices, it would have been helpful if, as well as telling those who pay at the post office that they could switch to direct debit, it had sent letters asking those who pay by direct debit whether they knew that they could pay their council tax over the post office counter.
Post offices need to have the opportunity to develop more services. For example, they could become the centre in rural areas for rural banking and for finance, insurance and many other services. They need to be multi-service
centres and the Government want to develop them. In their performance and innovation unit report on the rural economy, which was published in December 1999, they said that they wanted centres of information technology, business links and a variety of other financial services to come together in one place.
The only problem that I have with the report is that there is no mention of the existing Post Office network and the financial services that are already provided, and the fact that there is a network in rural areas that could be built upon. I hope that the rural White Paper will take on board the other innovation in the performance and innovation unit report about the work of the Post Office and use the Post Office network as the basis for the multi-service centre that we want to develop to help rural economies.
I shall give the House a good example that I mentioned in the Westminster Hall debate last Wednesday, which bears repeating. Ruardean Woodside, a small village in the Forest of Dean, became one of the first of eight pilots set up in April 1999 to become an internet centre for that rural area. The hardware was provided by a grant from Gloucestershire rural community council. The kit is linked to Glosnet. People can come in and use the worldwide web and the internet. There are printers and people can send e-mail, print or fax to a range of services. It is free except for the telephone charge. It is a wonderful model of how the post office can be a centre of telecottaging activity. It stops rural isolation and helps to fight against information poverty in rural areas, to which the Government are committed.
The post office should be linked more to the local authority as a one-stop shop, where the information and the services provided by local authorities can be in the same premises. The post office is already the first point of information for many people on many issues, especially on social security and on grants that are available from local government.
Post offices have a real social function. Those who work in them know better than anybody else who is being fraudulent. They recognise the faces of those who come through the door. They will know when strangers come in and they will challenge them if they know that they are trying to cash a benefit cheque.
I know of two rural postmasters who will help families that are a bit chaotic and perhaps do not claim their child benefit. In one instance in Little Dean, the postmaster will go to the household, knock on the door and say to the family, "Do you know that you have four weeks' of child benefit owing to you?" He will do so to help the family out. That is a real social function.
Post office staff keep an eye on pensioners. They know when someone has not come in on a Thursday morning to collect his or her pension. They alert other people or they knock on the person's door to see whether he or she is all right. That is a social service that should formally be recognised and even reflected in the core payment that is given to sub-postmasters.
The Post Office network in our rural areas carries out at least 160 different services, one of which is to arrange holiday insurance, should that be wanted. Post offices used to be able to offer five different categories of insurance, including personal accident and household and earnings protection. However, the Tories stamped that out. I think that the Government should be considering reintroducing a
wider range of insurance services, especially in rural areas. Why not give post offices the facility to sell quantum cards for gas, electricity and water bills?
In the Forest of Dean there is poor public transport. It is being improved as a result of the Government's money for rural transport, but it is still poor. Poor people have to spend money to go to the neighbouring town to get and fill up their quantum cards. Surely it would assist people to pay promptly if quantum cards were available in post offices, particularly when we have the horizon project fully on board to help them with this facility. With smart card technology, it would be easy to accomplish.
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