Fairness at Work and Power in Communities
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
Out there in the country, a crisis is unfolding. We have the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s, pensioners boarding buses to keep warm and food banks handing out cold boxes to families where both parents grind for a living that pays so little they cannot even heat the food handed out to them by charity, when it should be given as a right. We have had an uprising across the north of England and demands for more power in Scotland, in Wales, in the midlands and the south. We need to rewrite the script, ditch old orthodoxies and end the injustice of whole communities being written off and written out of the national story by Governments with far too little ambition.
In every corner of this country, people are crying out for change, and this Government’s big idea is referendums on street names and an alfresco dining revolution. Is this it? Seriously, is this it? Can they not see how absurd it is to tour TV studios talking about a Medici-style renaissance of our towns, villages and cities when high streets are falling apart, when many town centres in every part of this country are now no-go areas for people who live there, and when homes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) said, are cold and damp, and communities are broken apart by policies that force people to move into insecure housing miles away from friends and families? While they tour the country, reading out lists of leisure centres that have had a lick of paint funded by a small refund of our money that has been taken from us over a decade, on every measure—wages, homes, transport and life expectancy —the gap is growing and Britain is going backwards.
Are the Government not ashamed to stand there and say that they are getting the country firing on all cylinders, spreading prosperity and widening opportunity when Bloomberg this week showed that in nine out of 10 constituencies, the salary gap is widening, almost everywhere homes are unaffordable and public spending has fallen behind London in every single region of England in the two years since this Government were elected and took office with a promise to level us up? Are they not ashamed?
I thought it was pretty brave of this Government to enshrine the levelling-up missions in law, given that appalling record, but then I read the small print, and it turns out they are not even doing that. They are not even delivering the big flagship promise. Tucked away in this 325-page Bill, it states:
“The Minister…may revise the current statement of levelling-up missions so as to change the mission progress methodology and metrics or…target date”.
This is exactly what we have come to expect. They say they will build 300,000 houses a year, and then they do not. They promise Northern Powerhouse Rail 60 times in 60 press releases over seven years, and then they ditch it. They have given more money to fraudsters than they have to the whole of the north of England in the past year.
The bus subsidy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) said quite rightly, was quietly halved when no one was watching. The Government have closed Department for Work and Pensions offices across our regions. Remember that promise that when we left the European Union, we would take back control and the money that used to flow freely back to us through Brussels would be protected? That promise has been thrown in the bin.
The Cabinet is meeting in Stafford today. Frankly, I do not know how they have the nerve. Stafford is one of those places. Some £35 million has been lost from Stafford because of this Government’s decision to hold on to money that belongs to us. A billion pounds has been taken from communities in England. I am starting to think that the Government are just incapable of keeping any simple promise. After all the talk and all the spin, the only people who seem to have taken back control are a small group of Ministers in Whitehall. Any Government worth having would have used this Queen’s Speech to get money into people’s pockets, scrapping business rates and bringing in a windfall tax on the big oil and gas producers to get money off people’s energy bills.
It is not just that the Government do not back us when companies are making record profits and we are struggling to heat our homes; it is that they are actively working against us. This is the only Government in any G7 economy to put up taxes on workers during a cost of living crisis. I gave up looking for this Government’s moral compass a very long time ago, but the economic stupidity of that is breath-taking. Next year, we are forecast to have the slowest growth of any G7 country, which is why levelling up matters more, not less, at a time such as this. We should be turbocharging this programme and investing in our communities.
In the nine years leading up to the pandemic—in almost a decade of Tory rule—only two of the 38 OECD countries invested less than Britain, which is how we got high tax, low growth and a cost of living crisis. It turns out that if the Government slash solar, ban onshore wind and degrade gas storage, we get an energy bills crisis. It turns out that if an Education Secretary axes the scheme to build schools fit for the future, we end up with an £11-billion repair bill and one in six kids being in schools that are falling apart. Now the Government tell us that they want to raise school standards and enshrine them in law—give me a break!
The difference between us and the Conservatives is that we believe in our communities and we are prepared to back them. We would invest £28 billion a year, every year, for a decade to bring back the good jobs that underpin our local economies, so that kids from Barnsley to Aberdeen have choices: the chance to leave if they wish, and the chance to stay and contribute if they can. That way, geography is no longer destiny—do hon. Members remember that phrase?—and young people do not have to get out to get on.
This Bill is not a plan; it is a 325-page obituary of the Government’s levelling-up programme. The press release promises real power, but I think we have learned by now not to trust the spin. The Secretary of State promised to throw open the doors to welcome refugees from Ukraine, but he did not, did he? Some 200,000 families came forward in Britain to provide a home to people fleeing Vladimir Putin, but only 26,000 have been able to make a home here. After years of delay and agony for leaseholders, the Secretary of State said that he would make developers pay, but he did not, did he? We got a meeting, then another press release, but for all that, the agony continues.
What does the promise to implement the
“biggest shift of power from Whitehall in modern times”
actually amount to? The right to a better home was published literally—I am not joking—while the Secretary of State was on TV abandoning his commitment to build them. What on earth is the point of a right to something that does not exist? There was an announcement to make it easier for councils to bring boarded-up properties back into use, which is an idea so good that when we called for it back in September, the Government said that it was a “rehashed and failed” policy first proposed by the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—I did not realise that the Secretary of State took advice from him. They went on to say that it
“goes to show Labour…have absolutely nothing new to offer our country”.
I am pleased to see that they have come round to our way of thinking.
Seriously, how many times do the Government think they can do this? They make a flashy headline-grabbing offer, but then people read the small print. The “power” in question is a share of the infrastructure levy, but only if people set up a town or parish council; and more powers, but only if people have a Mayor and live in an area that the Chancellor has deemed “economically viable” and has not written off, as he has done large swathes of the country. Even then, only a privileged few friends of the Secretary of State seem to get any powers that they need. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) was an outstanding Mayor, but let us imagine what he could have delivered for the people of South Yorkshire if he had had the powers that he clamoured for throughout his entire time in office.
As I went through the Bill, it turned out that the only thing that we get the right to decide for ourselves is what our Mayor is called—I am not joking. Three whole pages of the Bill are dedicated to giving us the right to pick a new name for our Mayors. A Medici-style renaissance it is not. In fact, it is just patronising nonsense or, as the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) said, a load of baloney.
In the Secretary of State’s quote accompanying the press release, he brags that he will allow
“every part of England which wants a London-style mayor to have one.”
May I gently say again to Ministers that not everywhere in this country wants to be London? We are proud of London—we love London—but not everywhere wants to be the same.
Lisa Nandy
If I were the hon. Gentleman, I would be very careful about trying to give the Opposition lessons on bullying, given the allegations that were found to have merit against the Home Secretary and many other Members on the Government Front Bench. As they say, if you wrestle with a pig, you get covered in—stuff. I would be careful, if I were him, about using this place to try to throw mud at us.
If only the Secretary of State had come to us and said that he could not do what had been proposed. If only he had just said to us, “Look, the Treasury has blocked it, No. 10 has ditched it, and the Cabinet Office has laughed at it.” If he had come to us and said, “Work with me, because together we might achieve this,” we would have been more sympathetic today. Instead, what we get is 325 pages marking the death of the Government’s levelling-up agenda. Well, if the Government will not do it, we will.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said, we will proactively defend and support the people who power this country. We will not stand aside when workers are thrown on the scrapheap. It really does make nonsense of claims of levelling up when we have a shower of Ministers who did not lift a finger to help hundreds of P&O workers until the news about P&O was made public. Today, the GMB and Deliveroo have shown that the jobs of the future can be jobs that people can raise a family on with dignity, security and respect. The hon. Member for Watford (Dean Russell), who is here to listen to the winding-up speeches, has run an admirable campaign to protect the tips of hard-working staff from unscrupulous employers, but where is the employment Bill that has been promised 20 times? Seriously, where is it?
We will put money back in people’s pockets through a windfall tax, so they can spend on our high streets, and our town centres can thrive again. We will aggressively chase down the jobs of the future, not have an empty Procurement Bill. We will not be a Government who promise to bring renewable jobs to Britain and then award a contract to build windfarms in Fife to a yard in Indonesia; instead, we will have a real strategy to make, buy and sell more in Britain. We will close the gap that has seen only two regions of the UK prosper in 19 of the last 20 years, and 12 years of managed decline of our nations and regions under the Tories.
By investing in good jobs in transport, digital and skills, as well as in tidal, hydrogen, solar and wind, we will rebuild our coastal and industrial communities. These places were once the engine room of Britain. Within living memory, we powered the world, and we will again. Whether in shipbuilding in Glasgow, textiles in Preston and Burnley, mining in Wales and Wigan, or fishing in Grimsby, the people that make our great towns and cities are the people who drove Britain forward, and they deserve so much better than this. Those jobs may have gone, but what remains is a fierce determination to contribute again—not to the history books, but to our future.
We deserve a Government who share our ambition for our communities and for Britain. That is why Labour will do this with the best asset we have—our people. If I have learned anything in the last 12 years, it is that people who have a stake in the outcome and skin in the game try harder, work longer, think more creatively and do more because so much is at stake. This Bill should have been the moment to hand real powers that we know will work for us to our community, so that we are no longer forced to go begging, cap in hand, to Whitehall for loose change and small powers. Every community in this country has the right to make a contribution to the national effort, not just some. It was George Orwell, who is forever associated with my town through “The Road to Wigan Pier”, who said that this is a country that lies “beneath the surface”, and it is time for that country
“to take charge of its own destiny.”
It is time for this tired Government—out of energy, out of ideas—to get out of the way, so that we can build it.
Crown Post Offices: Franchising
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered franchising of Crown Post Offices and the effect on high streets and local communities.
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Just before Christmas, we learned that 74 Crown post offices faced closure or franchising to a retail branch, including my local one in Wigan. Taken alongside the 150 that have already been closed or franchised, that represents a staggering loss of 60% of the network in only five years. Crown post offices might be a small part of the overall network, but they are significant, historically accounting for between 10% and 20% of overall profits.
Many of us in the Chamber remember the anger when post offices were closed under the previous Labour Government. We should have learned then that the Post Office is important to the people of this country: it is our asset, we own it and we are proud of it. When the coalition sold off Royal Mail, two thirds of the public were strongly opposed. But here we are, and once again we have been cut out of the consultation.
The Post Office says that it has been consulting, but there is every reason to believe that those consultations are nothing more than a sham. The 2017 wave of closures was announced before Ministers had even bothered to respond to their own consultation, in which 75,000 people had urged them to think again. When the Aberdeen office was franchised, WHSmith advertised for new counter staff—at what was described as the “fantastic” level of the minimum wage—while the consultation was still going on and before any consultation with trade union representatives about terms and conditions.
James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. Does she agree that, as with our argument for postal workers, we demand better working conditions, pay and prospects in public assets that perform well? Does she agree that modern post offices can give more service to the public, but that that must not mean less for the workers in them?
Lisa Nandy
I could not agree more, and I know that my hon. Friend is a tremendous champion of that workforce in his Bury constituency. That point goes to the heart of how a publicly owned service should set the standard for how we treat our workers and our customers. I absolutely agree with him.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and I wish her, the Chair and all Members a happy new year. She made the important point about ownership of the Crown network. We are the owners but, in addition, the Government are the sole shareholder, so by proxy the Government are closing down our public services. We need the opportunity to have not just a debate, but the information before anything happens.
Lisa Nandy
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. On that basis, I was quite horrified at what happened last month when I went to my Crown post office to talk to the staff. I went with a representative of the Communication Workers Union, who had notified management in advance, but an area manager was then sent all the way to Wigan to block me at the door. We were chucked out of the building, but for some time I stood outside in the street in the freezing cold to talk to staff about their concerns and fears. A number of counter staff who had initially been keen to talk emailed me later to explain that they had been put under significant pressure not to come outside.
Why is a publicly owned business trying to intimidate and silence its own staff? It was particularly telling that the area manager said that she had been sent by the press office. This is an organisation apparently more concerned about appearances than about the rights of its own workforce.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. One of the most disillusioning things for staff is that this business hawks itself around to every and any shop that might try to fit a Crown post office into it, on the basis that that is better than a properly run, properly financed Crown post office. Does she agree that that can do nothing but disillusion staff?
Lisa Nandy
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is the view expressed very strongly by my constituents in Wigan. Over in Oldham, Members have had a significant response to a public petition that they set up for precisely that reason.
A Citizens Advice report showed that in those post offices that have been franchised, the result is longer queues, reduced counters and a significant loss of experienced staff. No wonder disability groups and pensioners groups have been critical of such plans.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. I wish her campaign in Wigan every success, as I do the campaigns of my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) and for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) in their constituencies.
For us in Blackpool, sadly, the boat has already sailed. Our Crown post office, which was a grade II listed building, now lies empty, while my constituents have to go down stairs, which is not easily accessible to people with disabilities, to an unprepossessing place in the middle of the shopping centre. Does my hon. Friend agree that, besides the intimidation she described, the Post Office is on a hiding to nothing purely in commercial terms if it continues to outsource branches in that manner to WHSmith, which is widely regarded as one of the worst retailers on the planet?
Lisa Nandy
I agree, and I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) might have an issue from his constituency that is relevant to that point.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden). In Reading, we have serious accessibility issues. The existing Crown post office is to be shut. It has been there for some time, is busy and has ground floor access, which is welcome for many local disabled people. Unfortunately, the post office is now to be moved into the upstairs of the very busy WHSmith branch on Broad Street in Reading. The lift access is only by a relatively small lift to the first-floor premises to be used.
My constituents are concerned about that, and about the additional problem of the sub-post office in the village of Caversham, which has been closed due to other, unrelated matters. Local businesses rely on that local post office, as do many elderly and disabled people. I agree with both my hon. Friends about accessibility, which is paramount for disabled people, elderly people and small businesses. I urge my hon. Friend to continue her campaign and the Minister to look into the matter.
Lisa Nandy
Many Members have similar anecdotes from their constituencies—I can see that the Minister is listening, and I am grateful to her for doing so. I have learned that access to post office counters in WHSmith is a huge issue for those with mobility impairments. Some, such as the one that my hon. Friend has just mentioned, have been located on the first floor in premises that do not have an adequate-sized lift. Yet over 1 million people have their social security paid into a post office card account.
The Minister is supposed to represent the interests of the public in discussions with Post Office Ltd and UK Government Investments. Will she tell us whether she has asked colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to carry out an equality impact assessment of the consequences of franchising on disabled claimants? I have seen no evidence of such discussions or of an equality impact assessment by the DWP. What discussions has she had with her DWP colleagues, and will an equality impact assessment be placed in the House of Commons Library as a matter of urgency, and certainly before any further action is taken?
Last year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) alluded to, WHSmith was voted the “worst retailer” on the high street by Which? readers, and it has been in the bottom two for eight consecutive years—it turns out that there is a lot of competition for worst retailer on the high street, so that takes some doing. Why, therefore, are the Government handing our valued public service to the worst retailer on the high street?
Significant sums of our money are being spent on, in effect, privatising the Post Office, using the worst business model available, yet apparently we do not get a say. At a recent meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on post offices, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss), the network and sales director told MPs that
“this is a commercial decision for us alone”.
Yesterday, I received formal notification of the consultation on the Crown post office in Wigan. The document that I was sent said:
“the change of management of the branch to one that is operated by a retail partner rather than by us directly is a commercial decision for Post Office Ltd and therefore we are not seeking feedback on this aspect of the change.”
That shows complete contempt for the public who own this service.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this incredibly important debate. The Minister know about this, but in my hometown of Tain in the highlands, our post office has been moved into a wee narrow newsagent where there is no room to swing a cat. That means that when a pensioner wants to talk about his or her pension or any other aspect of PO services, there is no confidentiality whatever. On 22 March, that newsagent will shut. We do not know where the new post office will be. There is a feeling of helplessness among my constituents. People in my home town want to know what will happen. I take on board the hon. Lady’s point that we, the people, do not feel we are in control.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. The Crown post office in Motherwell was closed down and there was a consultation. As we all know, the consultation consists of simply saying, “Can we have your opinion on the new place we have decided to put the post office?”, but then totally ignoring that opinion. Does the hon. Lady agree that this is yet another example of Tory privatisation of public services by default?
Lisa Nandy
I absolutely agree that that is happening, and the public can see it is happening, which accounts for the anger and the public response, particularly from older people, who the Conservative party has traditionally been very concerned to attract. It would be worth reflecting on the fact that the National Pensioners Convention has come out very strongly against the latest wave of Crown post office closures, because it can see where it is going, and it will not be in the interests of its members.
It concerned me when it became apparent at the all-party parliamentary group meeting that, should WHSmith fail, there is no plan B at all. There have been widespread media reports that WHSmith is in trouble. In fact, we have been here before. When the bizarre decision was taken some years ago to move branches of the Post Office into, of all places, Bargain Booze, which then folded, we were left in crisis. It seems there is no learning happening. Unless the Minister tells me otherwise, the Post Office has no plan B for what will happen in the event of WHSmith’s collapse.
Lisa Nandy
I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens), as she has not yet spoken.
Jo Stevens
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am losing my post office in the centre of Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. It is our last post office in the city centre. Does she agree that the Financial Times got it absolutely right when it said:
“Once a high street without a WH Smith seemed unimaginable. Now it seems almost inevitable”?
Lisa Nandy
I absolutely agree. I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East, as he said he would be brief.
Matt Rodda
I thank my hon. Friend for indulging me. I want to raise the mismanagement and the way in which the Post Office does not seem to engage with local retailers or look for suitable retail outlets to place sub-post offices. The problem we had in Caversham, not in Reading town centre, is just that. A local pharmacy shut and the post office then shut. It has taken months for Post Office officials to find new premises. Elderly and vulnerable people do not know where the post office will reopen and are very concerned. I would welcome the Minister meeting with residents to discuss this matter.
Lisa Nandy
My hon. Friend highlights a key issue that simply has not been heard, understood or addressed by the Post Office. These postal services matter not just to customers and staff but to our towns. In recent years, many towns across the country have been hollowed out. Bank branches have closed, and as the Centre For Towns has showed, bank closures have hit towns harder than cities or rural areas. Many of the banks that have closed branches in the centre of Wigan over the last few years were at pains to tell me that the service would not be lost because customers could use the post office, but now we find that the post office is closing.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Does she agree that WHSmith having been voted the worst retailer should ring alarm bells for the Government, and that the plan should be suspended on that basis?
Lisa Nandy
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Minister will hear “suspended”, “halted”, “paused” and “moratorium” over and over during this debate. It is not just about bank closures, the threat to the post office and the fact that WHSmith is in trouble. Many towns that face the loss of their Crown post office have had closures of major department stores such as Marks & Spencer, House of Fraser and Debenhams. Like the Crown post office, those are destination stores—they attract people into our town centres who then stay and shop elsewhere. There is a very real prospect that our town centres will begin to fall like dominoes. A perfect storm is hitting our high streets.
My Crown post office in Wigan has stood on its site in the centre of our town for 134 years. It has weathered a global financial crash and two world wars, yet apparently it cannot survive three years of Tory Government. One of our major concerns is about the lack of proposals for the building, which is owned by the Post Office. It is a striking building right in the centre of town. Will the Minister tell us what is envisaged for those buildings? Will we see derelict and abandoned buildings blighting our already struggling high streets?
Albert Owen
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government are trying to regenerate town centres, yet they are closing down buildings. In a town in my constituency, the building has been empty for some years and is a blight on the landscape.
Lisa Nandy
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; that is a story I hear over and over from colleagues around the country. Behind those losses is a loss of spending power in our towns. Over several decades, good jobs have been lost and replaced by minimum-wage, insecure work. Young people have left and there has been a significant loss in the working-age population. The jobs that remain do not pay enough to sustain our local services. We have felt the anger from those areas in recent years, so why do the Government allow this process to continue?
WHSmith employs its staff on part-time contracts at the minimum wage, whereas post office counter staff typically earn £21,000 a year. It matters for the viability of our town centres that people are paid properly, and for the health of our nation that people are treated properly. In my view, this failed economic model was one of the direct causes of the heavy leave vote in constituencies such as mine. It has caused justifiable anger in our towns, so why is that failed economic model being employed?
Surely, if Government mean what they say about listening to those who have been left behind and about trying to reinvigorate our high streets, they must abandon this plan right now and seek an alternative. All the plan means, as the Communication Workers Union puts it, is that post offices are on
“a path of managed decline”.
For the 800 or so staff facing transfer or redundancy, I suspect that this will be the final straw. The vast majority of staff who faced franchising were not subject to the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 in either of the last two rounds of transfer. Workers in Wigan tell me that it has been a tragedy to watch services run down over several years. Some of them have worked for the Post Office for decades, but this is the final straw.
The Post Office faces pressure from the loss of traditional services such as letters and from falling Government revenue, but it is by no means without assets. Last year it announced profits of £35 million. That should have been the catalyst to retain experienced and well-paid staff and expand into new areas—in France, La Banque Postale, established a decade ago, made a profit of €1 billion in 2016—but instead, it has cut staff and branches and awarded the chief executive a 7% pay rise. Behind the latest wave of closures is a story of greed, exploitation and carelessness with the social fabric and economic heart of our communities.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. Nottingham city centre post office is incredibly well used and very busy. When that transfers to WHSmith—the Post Office is not interested in what local people have to say about that—a lot of the staff will not transfer but will choose to leave. The post office will lose some of those experienced staff, who probably have a very good relationship with existing customers. On behalf of all of us who face a post office closure in our towns and cities, does she share my concern that that is a huge problem and a dereliction of the service we have come to expect?
Lisa Nandy
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but it does something else: it prevents the Post Office from being able to adapt, change and build new strategies for survival in the future. A lot of the staff standing on the cold street outside the Crown post office before Christmas told me that in recent years they had come to believe that what was happening was a deliberate strategy to run down our postal services, to the point that they are no longer viable or sustainable. That would be a shameful thing for the Government to preside over, without acting. Those staff, our towns and our communities deserve so much better than that. I ask the Minister today to place a moratorium on the franchising programme and to bring together stakeholders for a conversation about how to grow the business and make the Post Office fit for future challenges, rather than selling off one of our most valued public services to a failing retailer.
The Minister has consistently told us that it is not the place of Ministers to intervene, but perhaps she will take a leaf out of the book of her colleague who presented a petition to the Commons urging the then Business Secretary to instruct the Post Office to halt post office closures and listen to the people. That was back in 2008, and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was absolutely right. If the Prime Minister recognises the role of Government in protecting this publicly owned national asset, then surely so must the Minister.
Several hon. Members rose—
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) for opening the debate so powerfully. I certainly echo many of the comments that she made. If the Prime Minister did not underestimate the power of Government to intervene, I see no reason why the Minister should not intervene on behalf of all our constituents to ensure that this franchising process is halted. It is absolutely clear that it is riddled with problems. I shall reflect on the situation in my constituency in York and some of the challenges that are being placed at the door of people there because of the decision to franchise the service.
The first issue is the consultation process taking place over the Christmas period—it closed on 28 December—the busiest and most stressful time for post office staff. I pay tribute to them, but to have this situation hanging over their head over the Christmas period is nothing short of cruel. It also ignores the input that they would have wanted to have into the consultation. The issue is not just them and their jobs, but their customers, whom they care deeply about.
I want to highlight two particular issues: the impact on the local economy in York, and the location of and access to the post office. The post office has been at 22 Lendal since 1884. It has survived two world wars and still stands proud today. It is a busy and profitable Crown post office, which is a real advantage for our city centre which, like many high streets, is struggling. It is at the entrance to our city—a city that attracts 7 million people every year and a city that people will come into on a Saturday or during the week to use the facilities of the post office.
It is in a prime location for transport links, whether people are using the train or the bus to come into the city. Crucially, disabled people are able to pull up outside the post office to access the services, and for those who cycle, there is parking space for bikes outside. The post office is in the most profitable and accessible part of our city. It is boosted by having opposite to it Britain’s best pie shop—Appleton’s. People have a dual pact whereby they buy their pie and use the post office.
Lisa Nandy
As the Member of Parliament for Wigan, I am duty-bound to assure my hon. Friend that the best pies in the country are found in my constituency.
Rachael Maskell
My hon. Friend may say that, but by all judgment, Appleton’s has won the prize for the best pie shop in the nation.
To get back to business, the reality is that York’s post office is a profitable post office that works for my constituents. It is in the prime location. If the post office could choose its location, it would still be exactly where it is. However, the post office will be moving to WHSmith in Coney Street. That is not far, but the post office will be going into an area of the city that is struggling and where shops are shutting. The number of empty retail outlets that we see as we walk around is growing year on year and month on month, which is of great concern. People will not be able to pull up in their vehicle outside the post office because it is a pedestrianised area. That means that the post office will be inaccessible, particularly for disabled people but also for older residents.
The area will also have tighter controls in future. Mail vans will not be able to pop by because of the counter-terrorism measures that our city is taking—the Post Office was not even aware of that during the consultation process. If a van were to go there, it would have to be well out of hours because of the new counter-terrorism plan. It would have a very precarious route down a dark alley, which leads down towards the river and has been deemed unsafe under health and safety inspections, let alone if someone were to be in that alley with money—they just would not go there. It is deeply concerning for staff, who would have to use that as the only means of accessing the building other than going through the shop itself.
The post office will be located at the back of WHSmith. It will not be the first business to try to succeed there. Costa Coffee had a business at the back of WHSmith and it failed. In its current location, just down the road, Costa Coffee is thriving, but at the back of WHSmith it did not work. This does not make sense for the future of the post office. Therefore, its current location is the right place for it.
Kelly Tolhurst
I understand why the hon. Lady has raised concerns about sub-postmasters, and she is absolutely right to do so. Whoever has my role in Government—whichever colour of Government—has a duty to defend the Post Office but also to hold it to account. Since being in post I have challenged the Post Office and will continue to do so. Yes, it is commercially independent and operates within terms. We represent the taxpayer, who is the shareholder and owner of the post offices. It is right that we hold the Post Office to account for decisions and that we exert influence where we can.
Changing consumer behaviour has been a serious challenge for post office and small retailers, including many postmasters, which is why in the autumn Budget we made decisions on business rates to ensure that we helped not only some of our sub-postmasters, but small retail more generally.
There is widespread misunderstanding that franchising is a closure programme that will lead to redundancies and the deterioration of services for consumers, but that is not the case. I appreciate that proposed changes to the delivery of post office services can cause concern in some affected communities, but post office branches are not closing—they are being franchised either on site or by relocating them to other high street locations.
Franchising has been common practice since 1635, when King Charles I issued a proclamation allowing the public to use Royal Mail. The model has endured to this day, and the vast majority—11,300 of our 11,500 post offices—are run successfully as a franchise or on an agency basis with retailers, whether large or small. Delivering post office services as part of a wider retail offer is a proven model that brings benefits to the community.
The hon. Member for Wigan raised concerns about the post office in her constituency, which is included in the 40 that will be taken over by WHSmith. Subject to consultation, WHSmith will take over the running of Wigan’s central post office. Let me be clear that the community in Wigan like other communities across the UK is not losing its post office. It will be relocated to a nearby WHSmith branch, and the services will be more accessible for customers.
Lisa Nandy
I am grateful to the Minister for trying to address some of our concerns, but the community is not being consulted on whether the post office is moved into WHSmith. A consultation is explicitly ruled out in the documents that I have been sent. Although she says that this is technically not a closure, to our community it is. The post office has stood on that site for 134 years. Some of the staff have worked there for decades and offer the sort of service that will not be possible in WHSmith. When she has finished winding up—I appreciate that she needs time to respond to our concerns—will she consider meeting with a group of us to talk this through and consider what we can do to address some of those very strong concerns, which are not being heard at the moment?
Kelly Tolhurst
It is right that Post Office Ltd is holding consultations. I apologise; the hon. Lady said earlier that she had been chucked out of the store and that language of intimidation was used. That is quite an accusation to make, and I would recommend that, if that happens to any Member, they should make Ministers aware so we are able to—
Kelly Tolhurst
Absolutely, but that has not been done prior to today. We will take those things forward. I have met other Members about other issues in their constituencies.
It is right that the Post Office is commercially independent, because that enables us, as the major shareholder, to hold it to account at a ministerial level, and I am always happy to do that. I assure the hon. Lady that the proposed changes would add six hours a week to the Wigan branch’s opening times. She is correct—this goes back to an earlier point—that the ATM will not transfer over to the new site, so I understand her concerns about her constituents relating to that service, which would change in that situation.
Lisa Nandy
I thank all the many Members who have turned up today to show the strength of feeling that there is in every corner of this country.
I am grateful to the Minister for sitting through the debate, listening to our concerns and taking on board some of the issues relating to the consultation process, but I probably reflect the view of every Member who has spoken when I say that I am deeply disappointed that she has not agreed to suspend the process. There is a moment now—it will not come again—when we can choose to stop this thing that has failed us and our communities for so long, and to start to change course.
I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to meet me and a group of my hon. Friends to discuss this matter further. I hope she will continue to reflect on it and that she will think again.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered franchising of Crown Post Offices and the effect on high streets and local communities.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I will indeed. It is important that the tech sector maintains the progress that it has made in recent years, and I will do everything I can, with the Chancellor, to secure that.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
For 134 years, Wigan Crown post office has been the anchor of our high street and the beating heart of our community. It survived two world wars and one global financial crash; why can it not survive eight years of Tory Government?
Kelly Tolhurst
As I have said repeatedly during this questions session, we are not closing post offices. If the hon. Lady has a particular problem in her constituency, I am more than happy to hear her concerns about that individual case, but we are not closing post offices. We are taking a sustainable approach to make sure that we achieve and maintain those 11,500 branches throughout the UK.