Post Office Services: Isolated Communities

Andrew Western Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Continuing the trend, I am delighted to have secured a debate on post office services, in this case those in isolated communities. It is an issue that is very important to me and many of my constituents. You may not think, Mr Deputy Speaker, that a Member of Parliament who represents Stretford and Urmston, a seat relatively close to central Manchester, would be interested in post office services in isolated communities, but the key point that I want to make today is that it is not necessary to be rural to be isolated, and that post office services are just as important to isolated communities in city regions as they are to those in the countryside. That is why it is so important that the right support is in place to enable post offices to stay open and to thrive.

That brings me to the subject of Partington, in my constituency, which has been without a post office since August last year, when its long-serving postmistress retired. That has had a significant impact on many of my constituents, because while Partington is a great place in which to live and an area that I am proud to serve, there is no doubt that it is an isolated community. Transport connectivity is abysmal, there are no rail or light rail links, bus services are infrequent to say the least, and there are low levels of car ownership. What is more, its town centre banks have long since closed. In other words, the array of services that Partington post office used to provide, such as banking facilities, the collection or delivery of mail and the ability to pay bills, are now incredibly difficult for residents to access.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for initiating a debate which, coincidentally, follows another very significant debate about the Post Office. As he may have heard Members say during the earlier debate, post offices are a vital tool in combating rural isolation. Does he agree that there should be a statutory obligation to rural-proof post office provision? While the banks have abandoned communities like those he has referred to without fear or favour, the post offices have a responsibility not to do so, and we must ensure that that responsibility is fulfilled and delivered.

[Andrew Western]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct and, in fairness, there is a Government grant to support the subsidisation of post office services in isolated and rural communities. There is, however, a question of whether that grant is sufficient or, indeed, whether it is reaching the right places.

For the people of Partington, their nearest post office is now several miles away, and the lengthy round trip for those without transport is prohibitively expensive for many local residents. People in Partington are now in the 1% of post office customers whose nearest branch is more than 3 miles away.

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

It is clear that the Post Office’s treatment of isolated communities is increasingly poor, and two post offices in my constituency, in Treharris and Deri, have closed, with Pantyscallog in Merthyr Tydfil closing temporarily next week. Without a full consultation, we know that closures are usually permanent. Does my hon. Friend agree that, in terms of access for geographically isolated communities in which transport is poor and in which people have mobility issues or are elderly, not having a post office within 3 miles is placing services out of reach?

[Andrew Western]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.

Partington’s nearest recommended post office site, as advised by the Post Office, is 3.9 miles away. Although that is a significant distance in and of itself, the post office is within a local Co-op store. Residents are unable to access the full range of services at that location, and to do so they have to travel even further into Urmston town centre. Having these services in local communities is incredibly important, and my hon. Friend is right to highlight that, once they are gone, they often do not return.

Like my hon. Friend’s constituency, there is not only one recent example of a post office closure in my constituency. The Woodsend Road post office has also been closed since last summer, and the loss of two local post office branches within a few months—like my hon. Friend’s example of three closures in his constituency—gives an insight into the scale of the challenge nationally. We know that many branches, particularly those in isolated communities, are struggling.

As well as losing access to vital banking and postal services, people in Partington and Woodsend Road have lost something else—an important community hub. I know the Minister recognises that the value of post offices goes beyond the provision of mere services; they can contribute to tackling loneliness, they can prevent older or more vulnerable people from becoming digitally excluded, and close and trusting relationships are built between staff and customers. Indeed, research from the Post Office shows that three in four people who use branch services list face-to-face interaction as their main reason for choosing to do so.

In preparation for this debate, I reached out to residents in Partington and around Woodsend Road asking them to contact my office to share the impact that the closure of their post office has had on them. I am grateful to everyone who did, and I will share a snapshot of their experiences.

One resident, aged 77, told my team that conversations with post office staff were the only human interaction he had. If losing this was not bad enough, the gentleman in question had to start relying on Partington’s one ATM to access cash. He was recently mugged just after using the machine, because criminals know that vulnerable people have no other place to go in Partington to withdraw cash. He is now understandably scared to use the ATM again, and he instead has to rely on a friend to drive him to the closest post office, several miles away.

Another resident, aged 89, described the loss of the post office as “devastating” to her independence. She explained how in the past she used to walk to her local branch, but now her family must travel from Oldham, in the north of Greater Manchester, to drive her all the way to the Sale post office for her to access the services she needs. Her family’s journey will take upwards of two and a half hours to complete, on a good day. Another constituent is now spending £20 a week on taxis to go to her nearest post office, following the closure of her local branch on Woodsend Road.

This is unacceptable, not least because often those most affected are pensioners and are therefore necessarily on fixed incomes. I have written to the Post Office about both branch closures in my constituency on multiple occasions to try to find a resolution. At both branches, the Post Office could have been better prepared in terms of recruiting a new postmaster to run the branch and providing some sort of alternative provision in the short term. The postmistress in Partington gave the Post Office three years’ notice of her impending retirement, yet we find ourselves in this unacceptable situation. I am still awaiting news on whether a mobile or drop and collect service could be put in place as a temporary measure to provide residents with access to post office services while a longer-term solution is sought. I had to request that, as, seemingly, it had not been proactively considered by the Post Office.

I understand from the Post Office that recruiting new postmasters can be challenging. That reflects a wider challenge nationally about the viability of branches in isolated communities and the remuneration of the people running them. That brings me on to the issue of the support that post offices need. Like any other retailer, post office branches are facing the challenge of declining footfall, as more and more people go online for services. That makes the host shops from which post offices often operate less commercially viable. We should also reflect on the provision of Government services through post offices, which have declined by more than 75% since 2010 and today make up only 4% of their overall revenue. In March 2024, the Government are set to withdraw their Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency services from post offices.

We also need to look at the relationship between banks and post offices. With high street banks, including those in Partington, closing en masse in recent years, post offices have increasingly had to step in to provide banking services in communities. The 5,500 bank closures since 2015 have saved those banks about £2.5 billion to £3 billion a year. There is a strong case, which the Minister has articulated previously, for some of that money to be redirected to support the post office network. I would be grateful if he could update us as to whether any progress has been made in talking to the banks about their potentially providing some revenue to support post office services. One of my local post offices, in Stretford, hosts pop-up banks regularly and that town centre also is to lose one of its banks in the near future.

Last but by no means least, we face the big issue that the cost of sustaining the loss-making post office network is significantly greater than the £50 million in annual network subsidy that the Post Office receives from the Government, as I highlighted earlier in my response to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). As the Post Office itself has said, the pressures on branches in isolated communities have increased, but the subsidy the Government have in place to support them has not reflected that. I understand that it has declined over the past decade, from £210 million in 2012 to £50 million per year in recent years. Will the Minister assure me that the £50 million subsidy and/or other forms of financial support is available to provide post office services in places such as Partington, which, although not rural, are certainly isolated? I understand that if the money has been reduced, there is less to go around, but it would be reassuring to know that somewhere such as that would be eligible. The previous postmistress was not accessing this grant in order to run her post office, but the difficulties in attracting a new postmaster to run the service suggest that it may be something that should be considered in the future. I would be incredibly grateful for the Minister’s support in working with the Post Office to try to establish that, and in looking at any ways in which we can restore post office services on Woodsend Road and, in particular, in Partington.

To conclude, I hope I have highlighted the importance of post offices to isolated communities, particularly those such as Partington, as well as those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney and the hon. Member for Strangford. When residents lose these services, the impact can be devastating as they often support incredibly vulnerable customers. I again thank everybody affected by the post office closures in Partington and Woodsend Road who took the time to contact me and share their stories. I am pleased the Minister has had the chance to hear them today. I hope they help him to push for the changes needed to support our post office network moving forward and ensure those services are retained in isolated communities.

Autumn Statement Resolutions

Andrew Western Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

After 13 long years of Conservative economic failure, Britain is stuck in a cycle of low growth and high taxes, with working people across the country paying the price. This autumn statement was a chance for an economic reset, but instead we got yet another political reset. The Chancellor is, I hope, good at maths, so perhaps he can count how many there have been so far.

It is the Conservatives’ election strategy that has shaped this statement, not the needs of the country, but my constituents will not be fooled by minor tax giveaways in an election year from the same party that has raised their taxes 25 times since 2019—and they are minor giveaways, given that they represent less than a quarter of the personal tax rises that the Conservatives imposed on working people last year, with fiscal drag hitting millions of households. We should be under no illusion: the Tories are still the party of high tax if they massively hike people’s taxes, but then give them a little bit back before an election. Of course, the reason they are a high-tax party is the fact that their record on growth is so poor. If the economy had continued to grow at the rate that it did under the last Labour Government it would now be £150 billion larger, but instead growth in the UK has stagnated in the last 13 years, and is projected to be the lowest in the G7 next year.

When the Conservatives cannot generate the growth to fund public services, they raid the pockets of working people instead, but those people will rightly wonder where their hard-earned money is going, given that the NHS, our schools, local government and the courts are all on their knees. The situation for public services appears set to become bleaker still, given that yesterday's tax cuts are to be funded by a projected £19 billion of cuts in departmental spending—spending cuts that look eerily similar to those made by the now Lord Cameron. The Conservatives are not just resurrecting former Prime Ministers to serve in this Government; they are resurrecting their failed and discredited policies too. Perhaps the Minister can shed some light on how and where they envisage these cuts being made—or does he accept that, as the Resolution Foundation has said, the cuts are “implausible” and

“rest on the fiscal fiction”

that higher inflation will not increase public spending? Is not the truth that there is no long-term commitment to these measures, that they are simply a pre-election cover, and that the fiscal black hole they create is likely to be someone else’s problem?

As the Leader of the Opposition asked yesterday, how can a labourer or a nurse contribute to economic growth if they are one of the 7.8 million people on an NHS waiting list in desperate need of an operation? A healthy society and a healthy economy are two sides of the same coin, but the NHS did not receive the support that it needs yesterday, and there are many other public services of which we could say the same. What of local government, for so long the poor relation, ruthlessly targeted by the Conservatives since 2010, with their Liberal Democrat friends complicit at the outset? I should state for the record that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Associations and a former chair of its resources board, as well as being a previous leader of my own local authority, Trafford Council.

For local government as a sector, the autumn statement was wholly depressing. There were no significant new funding announcements, there was nothing new on special educational needs and disability funding, and there was silence on the continuation of the household support fund. There was not a word about public sector pay. My local authority is assuming a 3% pay award, but higher inflation for longer has the potential to affect the 2024-25 pay negotiations. There was no mention of the impact of the living wage increase—welcome as it is—and what it will mean for social care contracts: a 9.8% uplift will blow a £2 million hole in my local authority’s assumptions.

Trafford’s position is not unique, but it is especially acute. Low levels of Government funding mean that we have the lowest spending power of all the 36 metropolitan districts. A recent study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed that Trafford has one of the largest funding shortfalls in relation to need, equivalent to £35 million in comparison with national averages; and, unsurprisingly, it is one of the F20 group of lowest-funded local authorities, with the prospect of a £55 million budget deficit over the next three years. The delivery of meaningful services will become unsustainable in the short term if this position is not addressed for Trafford and councils like it, but it was thin gruel yesterday for local authorities up and down the land, to whom Trafford’s position sounds all too familiar.

It was thin gruel, too, for our broken housing market and our dysfunctional planning system. A desire to speed up business planning applications is welcome, but local authorities simply do not have the planners or the capacity to process the applications, a problem the Chancellor did not acknowledge or do anything to remedy yesterday. If the Government were serious about increasing housing supply, they would reverse their decision to scrap housing targets and build on parts of the green belt that offer nothing in environmental value, but plenty in economic potential. Perhaps we would then start to see the economic growth that we so desperately need.

There was some positive news on housing that I want to acknowledge: I do welcome the increase in local housing allowance rates. It is overdue, but it will be a vital tool in preventing homelessness. However, that is a silver lining among the very, very dark clouds of this autumn statement, because for all the bluster, there is no getting away from the most telling statistic to come out of yesterday. Between 2019 and 2025, families will experience the biggest drop in living standards since records began, and the tax burden as a percentage of GDP will be higher at the end of this Parliament than it was at the start.

[Peter Grant]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for picking up the point about the local housing allowance. Does he agree that if it is a good idea to unfreeze it for one year, it is not a good idea to refreeze it again in the following year?

[Andrew Western]

The hon. Gentleman has made his own case, but as a keen campaigner on all aspects of our housing crisis, I very much agree with his sentiment.

[Wera Hobhouse]

We have heard from the Government Benches that the taxpayer’s bill for the local housing allowance is about £34 million. If the Government were finally willing to build a great many more social homes, the taxpayer would not have to face that enormous bill.

[Andrew Western]

The hon. Lady is right about social homes. A number of leading organisations working in the housing sector would say that we need 90,000 social homes per annum. However, let me gently point out that it is not just a question of the supply of social homes; the spike in rent that we have seen in recent years is also exacerbated by a broader shortage of housing supply of all types and all tenures. That is why my party has committed itself to a fundamental review of not just of our planning system but, importantly, the supply of land, and I hope that everyone in the Chamber who is serious about considering how we can build the homes that we need will commit themselves to a similar process.

I turn back to the thrust of my contribution. This autumn statement is a damning indictment of the Government, leaving people with a higher tax burden at the end of this Parliament than when they were re-elected in 2019. It is the latest economic failure at the end of 13 tears of national decline. It is time for change: a change away from high taxes, low growth and falling living standards; a change away from dodgy contracts, covid fast lanes and looking after their friends; a change away from the Conservatives.

The Labour party is offering that change, with a plan to cut household bills by £3,000 a year by investing in clean energy, building new homes and insulating the homes we already have; a plan to prevent another catastrophe like last year’s mini-Budget by putting a fiscal lock into law; and a fully funded plan for a healthy society and a healthy economy by investing an additional £1.1 billion a year to deliver 2 million more NHS appointments, scans and operations so that people are genuinely supported back to work. That is Labour’s offer and, if yesterday was the Conservatives firing the starting gun on the election, that day cannot come soon enough.