HC Deb 08 December 1959 vol 615 cc480-8

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Legh.]

4.20 a.m.

Mr. Charles Doughty (Surrey, East)

I apologise for raising this matter at this late hour, but it is an important matter, certainly so far as a number of my constituents are concerned. The lateness of the hour is also due to another split in the party opposite caused by a breakaway section of the party.

I wish to draw the attention of the House to the closing of the sub-post office situated at 22, Godstone Road, Purley, in my constituency. That office had been in existence for at least forty years. In the middle of July, without any previous warning, there appeared in that sub-post office a notice that it would close on 1st August. There was, as can well be imagined, an immediate outcry. It was an old sub-post office that took a lot of business. The outcry came from a large number of residents, particularly those who lived in the part of Purley served by that sub-post office. There was an outcry by the people who live in Kenley, by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans), and by those who live in Riddlesdown.

The matter was brought to my attention and I wrote to the then Postmaster-General on 28th July. It was an unfortunate time to close the sub-post office, because everybody had either gone on holiday, or was about to do so, and a General Election was about to be held. I am sorry that the hon. Lady the Assistant Postmaster-General and her right hon. Friend now have this difficulty to deal with, but it was certainly not of my making.

Within a few days of that announcement being posted up a petition with over 1,000 names on it was prepared and sent to the Postmaster-General. Despite all those objections, despite the history which I have given, the sub-post office was closed on 1st August and remains closed today. The hon. Lady and my right hon. Friend now have a wonderful opportunity of righting the mistake which was made by their predecessors This sub-post office was established before the First World War. Since that date the population which it served has certainly trebled—perhaps even more than that. Until it closed it did a lot of business. I say that because of the large area which it served and the number of people who frequented it. I estimate that the sales of stamps and Savings Certificates amounted to about £11,500 a year. I know for a fact that one firm in my constituency spent £682 on stamps in that sub-post office during the year before it was closed. The firm's telephone account, £117, was paid there, too.

Suddenly, and without warning except for a fortnight's notice, it was closed. In addition to the people that I have mentioned, the Coulsdon and Purley Council objected to it being closed. The Purley and District Chamber of Commerce also raised objections, but no notice has been taken of those objections. They have simply been ignored. All those people still want that post office to be reopened.

The House may be interested to know why this hardship was suddenly inflicted upon those who had previously used the post office. In May of this year the sub-postmaster tendered his resignation. That is entirely irrelevant to the facts that we have to consider now, because I understand that the new occupier of the premises is quite willing and able to carry on where his predecessor had carried on before. But the opportunity was taken to bring the sub-post office to an end, and the reason given was that there was another office half a mile away which had been opened in October, 1957. I would point out that the figures I have given relate to the period since the new post office was opened, so that a great deal of business was still being done at the old one when the new one was in existence.

Godstone Road, where the new post office is situated, is on the main London—Eastbourne road. If people travel on foot they have to cross that road, and afterwards the High Street, to reach the post office. In rush hours, at weekends, and even at other times the Eastbourne Road carries an enormous amount of traffic, and is neither easy nor pleasant to cross. For those fortunate enough to be able to go by car there is nowhere to park by the new post office, whereas there were many side streets near the old sub-post office. In any case, they would have an extra journey of about half a mile on top of the journey from their houses or shops to the old sub-post office.

We are also told that there is now a rule that post offices in urban areas shall be spaced one mile apart. I say at once that, in my opinion, that rule is entirely arbitrary, and is very oppressive. It is certainly quite wrong to apply it in this case. The test should have regard to the amount of business the post office is doing, the population it serves, its accessibility, and, last of all, the nearness of the next post office.

I would remind the House that the Post Office is a great monopoly, and that the new Postmaster-General has broadcast on television and sound and has pointed out that his ambition is to give a good service to the people. This case will give him an opportunity to carry out that ambition. A service for the people of the neighbourhood—a service whose business has been increasing tremendously over the last few years—has now been suddenly taken away, arbitrarily and without much notice, and their objections have been completely ignored

The new post office to which they are forced to go does not give a good service. If one goes there at any time after noon—as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for The Hartlepools can confirm—one finds half the booths shut because of the staggered meal hours, and it is even worse on Saturdays. It is not easy to be certain of getting service.

My hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General may feel it necessary to support the civil servants in the Department. I say nothing against them; I know they are an extremely conscientious and hard-working body of people. But my hon. Friend and the Postmaster-General were put where they are to make decisions, and I know that their civil servants in their Department will follow the lead given to them. I ask my hon. Friend to consult her right hon. Friend and to examine very carefully the points which I have raised tonight and in correspondence.

I ask that this post office be restored so that it may continue to serve a large number of people, as had been the case for many years. These people are now deprived of their post office and are put to great inconvenience by being compelled to use a post office which is at least half a mile away. To reach this other post office old-age pensioners and others have to cross at least one very dangerous road and all because the Post Office, which has a monopoly, has arbitrarily chosen to close an old-established post office and to ignore complaints put forward personally and through local organisations and the Member of Parliament for the area.

4.31 a.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Miss Mervyn Pike)

Despite the lateness of the hour, I am glad of the opportunity, once more, to give a full explanation of the reasons for the closing of Godstone Road sub-post office. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) was a little ungenerous in saying that the arguments against the closing have been ignored. We have had a very full and frank discussion with the hon. and learned Member about all the factors which we took into consideration in deciding to close down this sub-post office.

The hon. and learned Gentleman put his finger on the crux of the matter when he said that the Postmaster-General had stressed his desire to fulfill our obligation of service to the public. Naturally, my hon. and learned Friend was looking at the matter from the point of view of the people living in the locality and ignoring the wider national implications which we have to take into consideration as a nation-wide organisation. We have to take into account the considerations of commerce and the economic running of our undertaking. We have a responsibility to be good employers and we also have a great responsibility to the public to ensure that all people have the same sort of standard in their postal services.

I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend will recognise that the pattern of life is constantly changing. I do not know how much slum clearance has taken place in his constituency, but I am sure that he will recognise that in many parts of the country a lot of slum clearance is going on and that new housing estates—

Mr. Doughty

There is no slum clearance at all in this area.

Miss Pike

I am trying to give my hon. and learned Friend a national picture.

There is a great deal of slum clearance going on in the country and new housing estates are being built. We are concentrating on building old people's houses in new areas and, as a result, there is a constant demand for new sub-post offices in areas where they are needed because of the commercial transactions which the Post Office performs and the social services which we provide by the payment of pensions and allowances.

At present, we have 23,000 sub-post offices and 1,800 Crown offices. If we have regard to the economic and commercial aspects of our undertaking we cannot go on increasing that number without increasing our overheads and thereby undermining the commercial prosperity of our business. For that reason we keep all the sub-post offices under constant review and when a sub-post master resigns we consider the position in that district.

This was not an arbitrary decision which was taken lightly. It is part of our policy of trying to give the highest standard of service everywhere in the country. We took a great deal of time and trouble over reviewing the case of the Godstone Road office. As my hon. and learned Friend said, there has been a sub-post office there for forty years. Frankly, we do not know why it was ever put there. Even in the lavish days of 1919 there was no justification for putting a sub-post office so close to the main post office in the main shopping centre of Purley, as it was at that time. Nevertheless, the post office was there. The main post office in Purley was becoming more and more cramped and less able to carry on its business efficiently, and so the sub-post office was left at Godstone Road until the new main post office in Purley was opened and was in operation.

In May of this year, when the sub-postmaster handed in his resignation, we brought under review the reasons for having a post office in Godstone Road. Because we took such a long time reviewing all the reasons and were so reluctant to reach the conclusion to close the sub-post office, I regret that longer than a fortnight's notice was not given to the people at that time. I admit that it was an awkward time, at the end of July, but the reason for the delay was that we were carefully considering all the aspects of the case.

The post office at Godstone Road was 550 yards from the main post office. My hon. and learned Friend says that it is a difficult and busy road for people going along it. It is a busy road, but there is a primary school opposite the post office, and, while it may be difficult for children to go along there every day, it is possibly not quite as difficult for people to go along in the normal course of their everyday shopping. He says that the crossing is difficult. It is the same crossing as the children have to use. It is a crossing over a busy road. but it is well sited, and it is on a bus route with a bus stop opposite the post office.

My hon. and learned Friend says that car parking is difficult, but there are two car parks adjoining the post office in the main shopping thoroughfare. In our view there were no reasons for exceptionally keeping this post office open. My hon. and learned Friend says that we are unjust in having what he calls an arbitrary rule of one mile. It is not an arbitrary rule. We always look at the particular circumstances of each post office. In this case, there are two post offices within three-quarters of a mile. A thousand yards from Godstone Road there is the Little Roke post office. People in that vicinity have two post offices available to them.

My hon. and learned Friend says that this was a particularly busy post office. In fact, it was one of the smallest sub-post offices in the whole of the London area. He quoted a figure of £11,500 as the turnover, but that is an extremely small turnover for a post office; a figure of £200 a week makes it an extremely small and very uneconomic post office from our point of view.

Altogether 345 pensions and allowances are paid weekly, but in a typical sub-post office, for instance in Croydon, possibly the same sort of district, 1,337 pensions and allowances are paid weekly. On all counts the Godstone Road post office was an extremely small post office with an extremely small turnover—in fact, one of the lowest in the whole of the London area.

My hon. and learned Friend says that there were a large number of petitioners. There were a number; I have the exact number here somewhere.

Mr. Doughty

There were just over a thousand, collected in two or three days.

Miss Pike

If my hon. and learned Friend looks at the petition he will find that a large number of the signatories live closer to Little Roke post office than to Godstone Road. We have looked into this carefully. Although, naturally, they prefer to go to the post office to which they have always gone, in fact they arc well served by the post office at Little Roke. We appreciate that, having grown used to a certain amenity in their district, people are reluctant to let that amenity go.

I assure my hon. and learned Friend that for all these reasons we took particular care in looking at the objections to the closure of this post office. I have myself gone into the objections very carefully indeed. My hon. and learned Friend no doubt realises that I am under constant pressure to open new post offices, and if he is here at Question Time this afternoon he will hear me being pressed to open one on the borders of my own constituency, where the ground is steeper and the difficulties are much greater. In that case, I shall once more have to say "No", because within the commercial and economic limits laid upon us we cannot justify opening any more of these post offices.

I have tried to cover all the points raised by my hon. and learned Friend. I apologise to the House for taking so long, but we are anxious to assure him that we have gone very thoroughly into the whole business of the closure of this office. We regret very much that it has had to be done but, as I have said, if we are to carry out our responsibility of giving a good service to everyone in the country we must make certain that we constantly review our programme, and constantly keep our standards high for everyone. It is in that spirit that I ask my hon. and learned Friend to accept that we have done our best to keep this office open. We believe that he will got good service from the new main office.

I am sorry that he feels that at lunch time there is some difficulty, but, as I have said, we have a responsibility to be good employers as well. I have pointed out that the people there start going to lunch at 11.30 a.m., and that lunch is staggered until 2.30 p.m. Particularly on Saturday, with the five-day week, there is a tremendous queue at the post office at certain times, but we are doing our best.

The main post office is not yet fully open, but my belief is that, as time goes on, the situation will get better. There again, however, we have to weigh the convenience of customers against the convenience of those whom we employ. We try to be good employers; and to give our employees the consideration they deserve. I think that my hon. and learned Friend and the people of Purley will find themselves well served by the new main post office; and that we have, in fact, done all we could.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eighteen minutes to Five o'clock a.m.