HC Deb 22 May 1968 vol 765 cc829-38

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

6.56 a.m.

Mr. Bernard Weatherill (Croydon, North-East)

After such a long night, I am pleased to have this opportunity of raising the question of protection of sub-postmasters. In view of the lateness of the hour, I shall do my best not to keep the House and you, Mr. Speaker, too long.

The purpose of the debate is to ask whether the Postmaster-General will move rather further than he has in helping to protect sub-postmasters in crime-prone areas from the hazards which they face by providing, free of charge, anti-bandit screens. I am well aware that sub-postmasters are employed on an agency basis and that one of the conditions of their employment is that they must provide, at their own expense, such reasonable office accommodation and fittings as the Department may require for carrying out the work of their office. But these regulations, I understand, were laid down many years ago at a time when sub-postmasters were required to carry very much less, and much less valuable, stock than they do today.

Today, a typical sub-post office has in terms of turnover of post office and Government business anything up to £500,000 a year. I have checked the stock of one of the post offices in my constituency, and I have a list of a number of sub-post offices in the Greater London Area. It would perhaps be worth drawing attention to the amount of stock these post offices have to carry these days. They vary in terms of postal orders from about £500 in Romford to over £4,000 in Southall, and in terms of National Insurance stamps, from £530 in Harrow to £18,000 in Greenford. In terms of cash in order to pay National Insurance benefits, anything up to £1,500 would be the average amount they would be required to carry.

These records show that the average urban post office carries anything up to 30 different categories of insurance stamps. When one realises that a single National Insurance stamp for a Class I contributor is worth 58s. 2d., it is not difficult to imagine the value of the stock in an average sub-post office. I quote these details simply to show how radically the situation has changed in recent years, and the amount of valuable and disposable stock which is at risk in the average sub-post office.

The number and frequency of attacks in recent years have been quite frightening. In 1966 a counter clerk in Leeds was murdered, and since that time there have been on average two attacks every week on sub-post office personnel. A constituent of mine, Mr. Ratcliffe, came to see me recently and left with me a Post Office circular of 3rd April. On the front page are listed the number and the amounts of awards for bravery which have been awarded to the staff. I quote very briefly from it. A sub-postmistress, £50; another sub-postmistress £30; for resourceful conduct on the occasion of a robbery, £10, and so on. The figures speak for themselves.

There is hardly an hon. Member of this House who has not had at least one incident in his constituency, and in the London area many of us have had several. In the London postal area alone in the last year there have been 37 robberies.

On 25th April a number of Questions were put down for the Postmaster-General, including one from me, in which I asked: if in view of the increasing number of attacks on sub-post offices, he will ensure that protective screens are made available free of charge to sub-postmasters with offices in officially designated crime prone areas?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th April, 1968; Vol. 763, c. 456.] Subsequently a Motion was put on the Order Paper which was based on this Question and which in the interests of brevity I will not quote, but it attracted no fewer than 40 signatures.

I fully appreciate that the Postmaster-General has offered a grant of £50 towards the cost of anti-bandit screens for sub-postmasters in "crime prone areas," and he has said that he will give them, in addition, an interest-free loan over a five-year period to cover the balance of the cost. I am also aware that he maintains that the National Federation of Sub-postmasters has accepted this offer. But, with respect, I understand that this is not exactly so. I have no wish to go into details of the dispute which the Federation has with the Postmaster-General about this statement, but at the conference in Jersey last week the deputy secretary of the Federation gave his version of the negotiations, and I am sure that the Postmaster-General will be aware of what he said.

I understand that standard kits cost in the region of £100 each, possibly less if a bulk order is placed. The Postmaster-General has already promised a £50 grant. Assuming 10,000 kits for sub-post offices in crime-prone areas, the total extra cost to the Postmaster-General's Department would be about half a million pounds—perhaps less than that if one takes into account the interest-free loan which has also been promised.

I well understand and appreciate the absolute need for a cut in Government expenditure, but I suggest that this is one area in which there is an overwhelming case for spending a little more. After all, a little earlier last night the House approved an increase in expenditure by the Gas Board of £1,200 million, and against that the half a million pounds I am asking for is almost a petty cash figure. What is more, I believe that this amount would be quickly recouped.

We all know, and it is an unhappy fact, that crime is on the increase, and so are the attacks on sub-post offices. These offices are a vital part of the service to the public. I appreciate that they are in a unique position in that they are a half private enterprise operation and half Government service, but they are responsible for 55 per cent. of all Post Office over-the-counter sales and are a most important and vital as well as cheap part of the Post Office service.

Theirs is a very reasonable request. It is that the Postmaster-General provides protection not only for them but for his own stock. They are not asking for a contribution towards the installation of anti-bandit screens but merely for the provision of the screens themselves free of charge.

Another constituent of mine, a Mr. Lipman, had this to say in a recent letter: This newly designed anti-bandit screen has now been offered to us provided we pay some of the purchase price and all of the installation costs. This is like asking a soldier to provide his own anti-tank devices or a policeman to provide his own truncheon. The Postmaster-General has denied that he has any moral responsibility to provide further protection for those people conducting his business. I believe that the last sentence is not wholly true.

In reply to a Written Question on Tuesday, the Postmaster-General said that he was reviewing the Post Office's policy on this matter. That is very encouraging news, and I hope that the Assistant Postmaster-General will be able to say a little more this morning. I am sure that it is his wish not only to protect the Government's money and his Department's property, but also the lives and limbs of sub-postmasters and their staffs, who do such a splendid and important job not only for his Department, but for the public.

7.8 a.m.

Mr. Robert Cooke (Bristol, West)

I wish to support my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Weatherill). Only yesterday, I received letters from two sub-postmistresses who are grateful for the proffered assistance from the Post Office, but who both say that considerable structural alterations are necessary to their post office counters before the new screens can be fitted. I hope that the Assistant Postmaster-General has listened carefully to what my hon. Friend said and that he will do everything that he can to help these gallant people.

7.9 a.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Joseph Slater)

The matter we are debating this morning is one of grave public interest. I share the concern expressed by both hon. Members opposite. In recent years, the country as a whole has seen a regrettable increase of violent crime in our cities and towns.

As hon. Members know, every post office, however small, must have a certain amount of cash on hand to carry out its job, and this is, of course, the reason why we have come to share a heavy part of the burden caused by this national increase in violent crime. To help combat this, we have recently appointed a senior police officer to re-examine all our precautions over the full range of our activities.

I should now like to give the House a break-down of the present situation and of the steps being taken to meet it. We are this morning dealing with those of our post offices which are classed as scale payment sub-offices. These are the offices where the postmaster is not a civil servant, but is employed on an agency basis. We do not pay him a fixed salary or wage. Instead, he is rewarded on a scale based largely on the amount of business which his office transacts. In return, he is responsible for providing suitable premises, for engaging and paying any extra staff that are required, for providing a counter and other equipment necessary to run the office, and for giving protection to Post Office cash and stock. The money he is paid—on a scale negotiated with the Federation of Sub-Postmasters—specifically takes account of these responsibilities.

I stress this fact particularly as I believe it has not always been clear to hon. Members during the lobbying to which they have been subjected recently by enthusiastic local branches of the Federation. The Post Office has given sub-postmasters considerable extra help in the past in meeting their responsibilities. But responsibility for counter equipment and for security remains a part of their conditions of service—which they accept on appointment and in relation to which they are rewarded.

By far the largest number of our post offices come in this scale payment category.

Mr. Reginald Eyre (Birmingham, Hall Green)

While listing these responsibilities, would the hon. Gentleman say whether, supposing there was a theft of £1,000 from a sub-office, the Post Office would suffer the cost of that loss or the sub-postmaster? If the Post Office suffers the loss, would it not be cheaper for the Post Office to provide the anti-bandit screens?

Mr. Slater

That is a form of interjection which does not match the position which I am trying to explain to the House. I am explaining what the terms of their appointment are. They are responsible for the money, the safes, and everything else in their possession.

I was saying that by far the largest number of our post offices come into the scale payment category, 23,127 out of 24,906 to be precise. And altogether they carry out some 50 per cent. of our counter transactions. The hon. Member put it at 55 per cent., but we put it at 50 per cent. The remaining offices are the bigger offices staffed by civil servants.

If I may give some statistics, there were 106 bandit attacks on scale payment offices in the past financial year as compared with 87 in the year before that. Fortunately in only 10 attacks was there any serious injury. I must also stress that a large proportion of the attacks were not successful or else resulted in very small loss, due either to the intelligence and bravery of sub-postmasters and their staff or else to the effectiveness of the security devices provided.

Nevertheless I must stress to the House the seriousness of what we confront. Sub-postmasters have to face ruthless criminals, who are apparently quite prepared to use firearms, ammonia and physical violence to overcome sub-postmasters and their staffs. Hon. Members ask— and they are right to ask—what the Post Office is doing to help sub-postmasters who are placed in this predicament.

The Post Office has in fact already spent £500,000 on various security devices in sub-post offices. The House will I feel sure not wish me to describe those of them whose effectiveness depends on concealment, but I would like to mention alarm bells. As I have said, we have over 23,000 sub-post offices altogether, and about 10,000 of these in the most crime-prone areas have been provided with these special bandit alarms.

It is interesting to note that 85 per cent. of the 106 attacks last year occurred at offices provided with bandit alarms and that in only four instances was the attack pressed home after the bandit alarm had been operated. This is not the whole story of course; sometimes the attack was so sudden that there was no time to sound the alarm at all, or it was sounded too late to be fully effective. Nevertheless, this alarm has played a major part in protecting our staff against injury.

In a rather different field of security, safes have been anchored to prevent removal by burglars and many of them have been girdled with special alarm devices.

To enhance co-operation between the Post Office and sub-postmasters in meeting these security problems, we have a joint committee comprising representatives from our Security Section and the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters. This committee meets regularly to exchange freely their views on sub-post office security in the light of changing crime trends.

It was at one of these meetings that the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters asked the Post Office to look into the possibility of developing an anti-bandit screen for sub-post office counters, made from force-resisting materials which could be mass produced to keep the usual high costs of such sophisticated barriers as low as possible. Therefore the Post Office took action.

Post Office engineers, with the advice of crime prevention experts, set out to design such a screen. Having designed and tested this effective protection for sub-postmasters and their assistants, we then had to decide how to make the screens available to any sub-postmaster who wished to have one and, at the same time, provide particular assistance to sub-postmasters in the crime-prone areas. These are mainly the urban areas, where the great majority of bandit attacks have occurred and where there are about 10,000 sub-offices. Provision of screens in these areas will provide protection where it is needed most.

The scheme upon which we decided, after lengthy discussions with the Federation of Sub-Postmasters, was that of inviting all sub-postmasters to give us a provisional order for a screen, based upon our estimates of the likely cost, and, as an encouragement to sub-postmasters in the crime-prone areas, to offer them a contribution of £50 towards that cost.

Additionally, we offered all sub-postmasters an interest-free loan—to be repaid within five years—to cover the costs falling on them. To most sub-postmasters, the cost would under these proposals amount to no more than a few shillings a week. In the light of the number of individual orders received, the Post Office intended to place bulk orders for the parts and make arrangements for them to be delivered to meet the requirements of each sub-postmaster.

The sub-postmaster's task will be to erect the screen himself or get a shop-fitter to do it for him. The cost of the scheme to the Post Office—over and above development and administration costs—will depend on the number of sub-postmasters in the crime-prone areas who accept the offer. If all 10,000 in the crime-prone areas do so, and we hope they will, the cost to us under this scheme will be £500,000.

Newly appointed sub-postmasters in the crime-prone areas will need to start off with good counter protection and we shall insist they do so at the outset. Where a new sub-postmaster is taking over an office which has already received a £50 grant a further grant will not be made; he would probably buy the screen from the outgoing tenant. Where the office had not received a grant the incoming sub-postmaster would be entitled to it. This arrangement would benefit existing sub-postmasters by keeping up second-hand prices.

The National Federation of Sub-Postmasters accepted the scheme subject to further negotiation on the financial aspect and has since been pressing us to bear the whole cost. Because of this, sub-postmasters in some areas have apparently been persuaded not to complete the provisional order, despite the assurance we gave that no one who buys the screen at the outset of the scheme will be at a financial disadvantage if, say, within the next five years the basis of the scheme should be changed.

For our part, we have pressed ahead with the job of getting tenders for the bulk supply of the necessary components and we hope that we may get the first supplies shortly.

In devising this scheme we had on the one hand to take account of sub-postmasters, conditions of service which I described earlier in my speech. I repeat the salient points. Sub-postmasters are agents; they are not direct employees of the Post Office. Their terms of appointment make them specifically responsible for providing adequate safeguards for Post Office cash and stock. Their emoluments take these facts into account.

To put it another way, sub-postmasters own their businesses and improvements made to the premises accrue to them. When one of the screens we have designed has been installed, it will be the property of the sub-postmaster, and any second-hand price will go to him if he sells his business.

On the other hand, the Post Office is very deeply concerned in this situation, both as regards helping to protect its own cash and stock and as regards the welfare and protection of sub-postmasters and their staff. The earlier assistance which I have described stems from this. This too is the reason why we have designed the screen now under discussion; why we are looking after its manufacture and distribution, and why we have made the offer of financial assistance whose principal features is the outright offer of £50 covering the 10,000 sub-postmasters in crime-prone areas, supplemented by interest-free loans for costs other than this.

These terms are to my mind fair and reasonable, having regard to sub-postmasters' responsibilities and conditions of appointment. £50 may not sound a great deal, but it adds up to a lot when multiplied by 10,000, and any improvement in what we are proposing to pay would be expensive in proportion. Our scheme is of course a compromise. It recognises that both the individual sub-postmaster and the Department have responsibilities in combating crime against the scale payment office.

As with any financial compromise there is bound to be debate as to whether the sum selected is correct. My right hon. Friend is certainly not heedless of the strong representations he has received from Members on both sides of the House. He is interested in this debate, and the observations made by the hon. Gentleman. In the interests of the sub-postmasters in his constituency and all others, he is reviewing this matter. Meanwhile, I hope I have been able to show tonight that the course we have pursued has at least been logical, and not unworthy.

Ever since I went to the Department we have been introducing methods of crime prevention, attempting to abate this trend. The hon. Gentleman can be assured that my right hon. Friend will give every consideration to what he has said.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes past Seven o'clock a.m.