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10.3 am
Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): I congratulate the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) on bringing this well-worn topic back to Westminster Hall. It does not matter that we are going over old ground; until we get clarification of exactly what the Government want to do with the post office network, and of the plans on how to deliver services in rural areas, we will retread the same ground.
I welcome this morning’s debates. I see this as a three-hour debate; I hope that all hon. Members will stay for the second part, which is on the future of affordable housing in rural areas. To me, the two subjects are inextricably linked. It is no good talking about service provision unless we consider who lives in rural communities, and how they can afford to live in them.
I start by laying down a challenge. Too many rural communities want to maintain their services, but do not think about how they will do that. All rural communities need to regenerate themselves. They either grow in a sustainable way, or they die.
Bob Spink: The hon. Gentleman is a well known campaigner and fighter for rural communities, but does he acknowledge that post offices are important to urban communities, too? They have been hit hardest over the past five years, with the number of urban post offices falling from about 9,000 to only 6,500. They are just as important to vulnerable people.
Mr. Drew: I take that as a slap on the wrist. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I am here to talk largely about my experiences in a semi-rural area. The way in which we look at the link between rural and urban areas is absolutely essential.
Julia Goldsworthy rose—
Mr. Drew: I give way to the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy), who will talk about the Sustainable Communities Bill, which I was about to talk about, although she will get her plug in first.
Julia Goldsworthy: I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so generous. I shall refer tangentially to the Sustainable Communities Bill. The hon. Gentleman talked about the importance of rural communities and their wider sustainability, in terms of supporting services such as post offices. Does he agree that, unfortunately, rural communities are often hamstrung and have no control over important aspects of their future sustainability, such as over the growth in the number of second homes? At the moment, there are no restrictions on that growth, which is one of the key drivers in undermining the social, economic and environmental sustainability of many rural communities.
Mr. Drew: I thank the hon. Lady for that; of course, I agree with her. I shall push on and try to connect some of the points made.
I stress that in the Sustainable Communities Bill—I hope that the House will treat that subject increasingly seriously—there is at least the idea of a strategy on how local communities can take back power and responsibility, as they perceive, at least, that they have lost it. I think that often that is a perception, rather than a reality, but of course if a community has an out-of-town shopping facility, that is a reality that it cannot escape from.
There are three levels, and we have to start at the level of the individual. Too often, individuals complain about the loss of their post office, pub or village school, yet they drive past that school with their children, or drive past those facilities to the supermarket, or they work 200 miles away. That may well be the nature of the world that we live in, but it is not a good world, a sustainable world, or a world that will be fit for purpose in this decade and beyond. The adage “use it or lose it” applies, and too often we lose it, because people become concerned about a facility only when it is about to close. That is sad and reprehensible, but it is avoidable; we must start with the individual.
One of the problems with the Post Office card account is that too few people in the know have signed up to it. I have signed up to it; that is a moral responsibility to which I have adhered. I hope that the decision-makers see the value of it, and run it alongside bank accounts. It was never supposed to be a pure alternative to the bank account; it was supposed to be a different way for people to withdraw money. I know that that is not the Minister’s responsibility, but he has to talk to the Department for Work and Pensions about what plans it has for POCA. We just need coherence. A lot of people signed up for POCA because it is easy and successful, but also because they believed that that was how to keep their post offices open. Let us build on that.
Next,
we move on to the level of the community. I believe that the whole
community has a responsibility
to its service provision. I declare an interest: I am still a town
councillor in my town of Stonehouse. We were faced with the post office
not necessarily closing, but being moved from a specially built
building, and with a possibly deteriorating service. The town council,
because it had money, invested in that facility and took the whole
building on; now, the town council building abuts the post office. To
me, that is the best of both worlds. A lot of smaller community
councils do not have the money or wherewithal to do that. However, when
they produce their annual report for their parishioners, they should
state whether they have engaged with their post office and service
deliverers in order to determine whether there are things that they
could do better together, whether there is a mutual support mechanism,
and whether they should go out to their community and say, “We
need to invest in those services.” The idea of the common bond
and the monies that could be raised therein is not a fantasy. People
can sign up to the belief that their services are important, and they
can put their money where their mouth is.
The Library’s debate pack provides an excellent run through the issues. I am featured on page 3—I hope that it does not go to my head—in a story about Paganhill in my constituency. Paganhill post office was situated within a one-stop shop. There is a Tesco less than a mile away, but Tesco took on the one-stop shop and announced that it intended to move the post office out. Catastrophe! The community were up in arms, but what could they do about it? It just so happened that the Maypole hall, which was round the corner from the post office, was willing to consider assimilating the post office. It was a long saga, but 18 months down the line, 10 days ago, the new, refurbished post office opened in the Maypole hall.
There were three heroes: Alan Churchill, who chairs the Maypole hall committee, Robin Craig, who has taken on two sub-post offices and is looking to take on more, and Cyrsta Harris, who works for Stroud district council in its community development department. They all worked hard to make the transfer happen, and it is people like that who keep our services alive. Tesco, the Post Office and others played a part, but that is what is vital: people have to make things happen, otherwise services will be lost.
I was in Oakridge yesterday, a small village on the outskirts of my constituency. Mike and Kim Gorney live there, and she runs the sub-post office. Two hamlets, Oakridge Lynch and Far Oakridge, came together to keep a sub-post office going throughout all the recent difficulties. She has run it for the past 12 years, but Mike and Kim want to move in order to improve and extend the post office and introduce longer opening hours. I do not want to pre-empt the planning process, but I hope that they receive permission. Yesterday, they took me through how they will fund the development, and they are looking for help. One important aspect of the figure of £150 million is that it is supposed not only to pay a pure subsidy to keep businesses going, but to reward innovation. However, when the Gorneys look for funds, it always seems that the funds are spent up or they are not the right ones.
The last two pages of the
excellent debate pack refer to the different funding streams available.
The rural
capital start-up subsidy scheme has gone, to be replaced by the rural
re-start scheme. Interestingly, it has to be match-funded, and the
Gorneys made it clear how difficult that is. When one raises money to
buy a building and undertake much of the work, one has to pay for the
movement of counters, security and so on. The rural investment fund was
launched in October 2004, but it has only £1 million. Against
the thousands of post offices that are trying to keep themselves going,
let alone improve, it is not a great sum of money. I hope that my hon.
Friend the Minister will explain how we can bolster it. Many post
offices are able to take advantage of the rural rate relief, but it
does not help when one moves a business. A small rural post office is
already likely to have drawn down that money.
The Government need to be clear. They cannot keep withdrawing services. The Post Office card account is a classic case of worthy investment, and to announce that it will be run down over the next couple of years and replaced with bank accounts is not good news, because it is a psychological kick in the teeth. People have invested a lot of money in their business and they have run it not to make money. The submission that I think we all received from the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters shows that the average drawings are less than £1,000 a month. There are some bigger post offices, but as the submission says, it means that an awful lot of people take substantially smaller sums than even two years ago. They are minuscule. However, those people are heroes, and that is why communities owe them an obligation. It is no good saying, “Isn’t it terrible that they no longer want to carry on and nobody wants to take this business on from them?” One must be slightly mad to take on those businesses, such is the level of reward; however those people are true heroes and they should be rewarded financially and because they are key people in their communities.
The issues to do with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, which the hon. Member for Eddisbury highlighted, TV stamps and Saga all give out the wrong signals. They may not be problematic as discrete decisions, but collectively they are doing immense damage.
Sir Robert Smith: Those issues not only send the wrong signal, but downgrade a service. In my constituency there are 41 sub-post offices in which people can obtain a TV stamp, but there are only 16 PayPoints. It seems rather sad that the two organisations could not come together to work out how they could have maintained a mixed system in rural areas. The Post Office could have assisted people, as it has with banking, and reached further into the rural community.
Mr. Drew: I agree. I shall refer to the ATM issue, because I seek clarification from my hon. Friend the Minister about their—and perhaps other services’—introduction in rural post offices.
The Post Office sold me on the
hub and spokes idea, whereby the main post office, which the Post
Office might own, becomes the hub and uses its delivery mechanism to
work in tandem with sub-post offices. As the hon. Member for Eddisbury
said, they can remain independent private businesses, but it does not
mean that they cannot co-operate. It is far better they do,
rather than compete against one another and fail, with all those
businesses suffering as a result.
I make no apology for concentrating on rural businesses, because they are under greatest threat. We have been through the urban reintegration issue, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will clarify where the hub and spoke idea has got to. It affects what we do in Stroud, but it seems to happen by accident. Perhaps it happens by osmosis, but it does not seem to happen by design. It is not as well planned as it could be, and I want to know that sub-post masters and sub-post mistresses are being given all the help that they require to keep their businesses going, expand them and co-ordinate them with others.
The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) referred to banking and financial services. It is a crucial issue, because the whole system needs to hold together. Last week I received from the Post Office a long press release about the installation of ATMs in more sub-post offices. Even though my hon. Friend the Minister does not speak for the Post Office, he can talk to the Post Office, and I read into the press release that ATMs would be free of charge. We need to build up a bond of trust with customers and keep them using post offices, and if there are no banks easily accessible for miles around, they could be tempted to use ATMs and allied services. Foreign exchange has been a huge success story recently.
I want the process clarified. It is no good putting out press releases if we do not know what they mean in detail. If the post office is to become the community’s financial hub, we want to know that it will be invested in properly, and that it will be affordable, which means that we do not charge the poorest people more than they would pay if they could get to a bank. We have to make the process as easy as possible.
The challenge exists, but it will not be met by the Government alone. Communities and individuals bear a responsibility, too. The Government must set the strategy correctly and put the money in, and clearly £150 million will not be enough next time. We shall have to consider how we revisit and rework what we are doing in the more urbanised areas, as we are now considering the true urban centres, which face somewhat different problems. That is the challenge. I hope that we can move forward, and this debate has been a worthwhile opportunity to do so.
Mrs. Joan Humble (in the Chair): Order. Before I call the next speaker, I want to point out to the two hon. Gentlemen who are trying to catch my eye that I hope to call the speakers from the Front Benches soon after half-past 10, so brevity is the order of the day.
10.20 am
Mr. Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD): I welcome you to the Chair, Mrs. Humble. I also want to congratulate the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) on securing the debate, which is important. The fact that we have had a series of debates, on both the Post Office card account and the Post Office, shows how concerned hon. Members from all parties are about the future of the post office network.
The Post Office has suffered three blows this year: the announcement that the Post Office card account will be withdrawn in 2010, the encouragement to motorists to renew their car tax over the internet, and now the removal of TV licensing. What strikes me is that we have in the Chamber today the Minister from the Department of Trade and Industry who is responsible for the Post Office, but those decisions have all been made by other Departments, which seem to be under pressure to cut their budgets and appear to be acting independently of the DTI.
We have heard that the Deputy Prime Minister is the Chairman of the Cabinet Committee that is supposed to be co-ordinating Government policy on the Post Office. I was extremely shocked to find out that the Committee has not even met yet. It is easy to make jokes about the Deputy Prime Minister, but as this is a serious debate I will avoid doing so. I simply point out that the Deputy Prime Minister seems to have nothing to do other than chair Committees, so if the Minister takes one thing away from the debate it should be to go to the Deputy Prime Minister and say that the message from all parties is that we want him to get on with the job of getting the Committee up and running and to come up with a solution.
The Post Office card account is clearly an important part of the business. I shall not go into detail on that subject today, because we have had plenty of debates on it already. However, I stress its importance and the need for a Post Office account to follow on from POCA and allow people to collect their benefits and pensions from the Post Office and from their Post Office account. Again, it is important that we have an early announcement on that subject. To emphasise a point that has already been made, as sub-postmasters and mistresses retire they will not be able to find anyone to take on the business unless it is seen to have a secure future. The most important thing that the Government can do is to make an early announcement that there will be a Post Office successor to POCA.
The other issue that I wanted to mention today was that the Government have taken away TV licence renewals from the Post Office, which is taking away a service from rural communities. The contract has been given to PayPoint, and PayPoint tends to be based in Co-ops and Spar supermarkets and nearly all the outlets are in towns. It rarely has outlets in villages so the service is being removed from rural communities.
PayPoint
also seems to have an incompetent computer system that tells people the
location of their nearest PayPoint outlet. Most worryingly, TV
Licensing, too, is using that computer system to tell people where
their nearest outlet is. I have a licence renewal letter that was sent
to a constituent of mine in the village of Cardross, on the north bank
of the river Clyde with a population of more than 2,000 people. It has
a post office where people have been able to renew their TV licences
for many years, but it does not have a PayPoint outlet. The letter to
my constituent lists the local PayPoint outlets, and gives two, both in
Port Glasgow. The PayPoint website says that Port Glasgow is only 2
miles away from Cardross. That is all very well, but the only problem
is that the river Clyde is in between. The Minister knows the geography
well, and
if someone wants to get from Cardross to Port Glasgow they have to drive
10 miles up the north bank of the Clyde to the Erskine bridge, cross
the bridge and drive 10 miles back. Clearly, the computer system is
totally incompetent. There is a PayPoint outlet 3 miles away in
Dumbarton, but the letter does not point that out. How can the
Government possibly have given such an important contract to such an
incompetent company, which does not have outlets in rural
areas?
Another disadvantage of PayPoint is that because it does not have outlets in rural areas it causes great difficulties in many of the islands in my constituency. Seven of those islands—Lismore, Iona, Coll, Colonsay, Luing, Jura and Gigha—have post offices where people can renew their TV licences. There are no PayPoint outlets on any of the islands, so how are people there supposed to renew their TV licences? Clearly they can do so over the phone or through the post with a postal order, which, if they do not have a bank account, they will have to pay a lot of money to get, but they cannot take advantage of the new card that is the successor to the TV stamp scheme. People in those islands are being excluded from that important Government service.
If people on the islands are not able to buy their TV licences, I have a solution: we should simply make using a TV on the islands free from the requirement to obtain a TV licence. If the Government are not prepared to set up outlets for people to buy their TV licences, the quid pro quo should be that a licence is not needed to operate a TV on any of the islands. Those are my messages for the Government today.
10.26 am
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid) for leaving me time to speak. I feel very sorry for the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), and the Minister ought to listen to him. Week after week he turns up to Westminster Hall, because he has a majority of only 350, and tells the Chamber about how the Government are cutting services in his constituency. The Minister, who has the benefit of a majority that is nearly 20 per cent. of the vote in his constituency of Poplar and Canning Town, ought to listen to the hon. Gentleman because it is the seats such as his that are keeping Ministers in red boxes and croquet sets. I hope the Minister will listen. It is also important that the hon. Gentleman is the only Labour Member who has bothered to turn up to the debate at all, which highlights a cause for concern.
I hope that the Minister will take time during the summer recess to visit a constituency such as mine—he would be welcome in Banbury—to see how rural or semi-rural England works. The Minister represents Poplar and Canning Town; most Ministers seem to represent inner-city constituencies and they have little understanding about how rural and semi-rural England works. Indeed, the Minister’s responsibilities include London. I hope that someone in the Department of Trade and Industry is responsible for the English countryside, rural areas and how they function. I do not think that anyone does.
The Government make much about
social exclusion, which, for them, seems almost entirely synonymous
with inner-city deprivation. There seems to be no
understanding in the Government that we can have rural social exclusion,
and that we can have social exclusion in housing estates on the edge of
towns such as Banbury and Bicester. They ought to see the Post Office
as an opportunity.
Where does government interact with the people? We hear a lot from the Prime Minister about enhanced delivery of public services, but we are seeing a continuing alienation and remoteness of government as more is done online. That is fine for younger generations, who might be competent and au fait with being online and using the internet, but for older generations that is not always the case. We see the removal of services that gave people face-to-face contact with government such as Jobcentre Plus, which has disappeared entirely in a big town such as Bicester, one of the fastest-growing towns in England. If one cannot get online, the only other way to connect with the machinery of government is through call centres and the infuriating process of having to press serial buttons, which drives constituents and all of us completely crazy. We are privileged with most of those systems, because the Government have realised that they do not work, in having MPs’ hotlines so that we do not all go mad with Ministers in the Division Lobby.
The Government ought to see Post Offices as a real opportunity where the state and the machinery of government can interface with people and tackle some of the issues of social exclusion that the Government talk about.
The withdrawal of the Post Office card account from 2010 is absolutely crazy. At a stroke, it will undermine the viability of practically every village and urban sub-post office. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) said, it was also disingenuous, because when the scheme was introduced everyone thought that it would go on for ever—that there would be a degree of continuity and substance. The Government’s withdrawal of the card account will undermine the post office network, and once that has happened it cannot be replaced. Once the post offices have been sold and the premises disposed of, they will never be available again.
I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman, desperate to hold on to his majority of 350, should implore the Minister to throw him a lifeline by maintaining rural post offices, but if Ministers do not start to listen to the voice of England they will lose many more constituencies than Stroud. People are fed up with a Government who have become increasingly distant and remote—a Government who simply do not listen to those who want to see protection for the elderly, the isolated and the disadvantaged.
10.31 am
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD): I thank the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) for initiating the debate. I also thank all hon. Members who have spoken. I have a word of consolation for those of my hon. Friends who were unable to speak because of time constraints. The Liberal Democrats, like all parties, believe that this is an important issue, but I shall be brief in my response to this wide-ranging discussion, as we all look forward to many of our questions being answered by the Minister.
It seems to me that two forces are pulling against each other—the Government and the community. Communities want control over their lives and their surroundings. The Government have a tendency for centralisation, which they use in the name of efficiency and standardisation.
In Solihull, neighbourhood policing has worked most effectively, as has community support. The idea of localisation, of familiarity with one’s immediate area, has been extremely successful for Silhillians and, I am sure, for all in the United Kingdom who have been able to enjoy its benefits. I understand that an announcement will be made later today on the merger of police forces into super-forces; I hope that the plan will be shelved.
Similar things are happening to ambulance trusts, with 29 forces being reduced to 12. Again, that is a removal from the local area and local knowledge.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD): On the merger of ambulance services, I can tell my hon. Friend that in my constituency recently, first responders—they provide a remarkable service, particularly in rural areas, by getting to critically ill people before the ambulance arrives—have not been called out because the system has been changed. It is now more centralised and more automated, and because the service covers a larger area peoples’ lives are being put at risk. Does my hon. Friend share my concern about that development?
Lorely Burt: I do indeed. My hon. Friend gives an important illustration of what can go wrong when over-centralisation takes place.
About 80 community hospitals are under threat. We have lost 1,400 beds since 1999. The idea of a market-driven concept does not sit well with a community hospitals. It seems to be their fault if they cannot make ends meet, and they have to close as a result. There is much concern among local people; community hospitals is a hot topic in many areas.
Hon. Members have already spoken about small shops, pubs, pharmacies and many other organisations. I remind the House that 30,000 independent retailers have closed during the past 10 years. We have often debated the encroaching role of the supermarkets, whose non-food sales have doubled in the last five years, and we have spoken of their predatory pricing and their squeezing of suppliers, and particularly in rural areas, those selling at the farm gate. That all gives rise to great concern.
As many as 20 per cent. of post offices have been lost in the past five years. The Government’s contribution to that, I am sorry to say, comes in the withdrawal of tax disc renewals, pension book payments and the Post Office card account. That all illustrates how much more difficult it is for post offices to make a living. However, I am pleased that the social network payments have been retained until 2008.
I am pleased
also that other innovations are being explored that one hopes will be
implemented in many areas. One idea is the hub and spoke system in
which a major village has a post office with satellites in the
surrounding villages in pubs, village halls, mobile post offices and in
partnership with libraries, the police and
so on. Those are all innovative ways that could help support the vital
community link.
It has been alleged that members of my party and others who are extremely worried about the sustainability of communities are clinging on to a romantic concept of the village and the community as they used to be 50 years ago. We certainly cannot go back, but we can use what works. I have already mentioned neighbourhood policing. Solihull is also spearheading a care trust, a partnership between health and social services working as one, which I am excited to see and which I hope will have a good result.
My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) has introduced the Sustainable Communities Bill, and I understand that an early-day motion supporting it now has the support of more than 50 per cent. of Members. I ask the Minister to give serious consideration to the issues dealt with in that Bill. While speaking of private Members’ Bills, my Local Government and Planning (Parkland and Windfall Development) Bill seeks to ensure that local communities have some say in the planning decisions that affect their lives.
In control is where people want to be. People want to be in control of their lives, their destinies and their communities. When that control is taken away, the sense of community breaks down and we see alienation in the countryside and the town, where the need, particularly of the young, to assert identity manifests itself in a plague of graffiti and other forms of antisocial behaviour. We see elderly people alone, afraid to go out, with nowhere to go, and with their shops and post offices shutting down; and we see communities disintegrating as their character is changed beyond control and beyond recognition.
The psychological health of our nation and our communities is at stake. It is worth more than a few figures on the balance sheet. We want community services to be just that—services run by and for the community. We say no to ghost town Britain. We say yes to sustainable villages and towns, which are defined by thriving local economies, environmental protection, community involvement and democratic participation.
10.39 am
Charles Hendry (Wealden) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien) on securing this important debate. There is an element of Groundhog day about it; we regularly pop into the Chamber to discuss the future of the Post Office network. We last did so on 14 June, when I welcomed the Minister and said that we were prepared to give him a small exemption because he was new to his post, but that he had to come up with some answers soon. I went on to say:
“We are watching the whole network crumble while Ministers simply wash their hands of responsibility”.—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 14 June 2006; Vol. 447, c. 293WH.]
That was an interesting mixed metaphor; I hope that the Minister has now finished washing his hands and that today he will break out of the Groundhog day tradition to give us clear answers about the future of the Post Office network.
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