Post Offices (Hansard, 13 July 2000)

§ 10. Mr. Brian Jenkins (Tamworth)
If he will make a statement on his plans for maintaining access to post offices. [128949]

§ The Minister for Competitiveness (Mr. Alan Johnson)
In his statement to the House on 28 June, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry announced a range of measures to underpin the Government's commitment to maintaining a nationwide network of post offices. Those measures include a formal requirement for the Post Office to maintain the rural network and to prevent any avoidable closures. This requirement will cover all post offices in settlements of fewer than 10,000 people, and will thus apply to nearly 10,000 post offices. In urban areas, we shall encourage improvements in the quality of post offices and associated retail businesses that also maintain convenient access, with particular emphasis on deprived areas. Furthermore, we have made it clear that financial assistance will be available to support those measures as necessary.

§ Mr. Jenkins
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. I am sure that he is unaware that access to the main post office in Tamworth is by a ramp or three sets of steps—that matter is outside his remit.
Although we welcome the universal bank, what will it do for customers for whom a bank account is wholly inappropriate? What can the Department do about that?

§ Mr. Johnson
The whole point of the universal bank is to pick up on the PAT 14 report on financial exclusion, which found that people who are outside mainstream banking services lose out as a result. The idea is to ensure that people who may have a certain distrust of banks, but who—as has been found time and again—by and large trust the Post Office, can use their access to post offices to give them the advantages of a bank account. That is especially true for those who draw benefits, and it is an 1059 important development. It is high time that we did something to tackle the enormous problem of financial exclusion in this country.

§ Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)
Nobody will have access to rural post offices if the income stream is not assured. Will the Minister give us an answer on our third try today? The sum of £400 million has been lost to sub-postmasters through the introduction of automated credit transfer. The Government's document states that the universal bank and other banking schemes might bring in £50 million. In answer to an earlier question from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), the Secretary of State raised that figure—off the cuff—to £150 million, without giving any reason. He mentioned various small things like the internet—[HON. MEMBERS: "Small?"] Yes. Who will fill that gaping black hole of £400 million in the finances of sub-postmasters? We want no waffle about Women's Institutes or commercial incompetence; give us the facts now.

§ Mr. Johnson
Of course, the hon. Gentleman has a degree in waffling. I remember full well that his solution to the problem was to privatise the whole Post Office lock, stock and barrel.
Let me explain the position to the hon. Gentleman. The loss of £400 million of income would occur only if no one ever went into a post office again to draw pensions and benefits across a post office counter. As everyone with an interest in the issue realises, the status quo is not an option. People are volunteering to go over to ACT at the rate of 500,000 a year, and that trend will increase as a whole new generation, who are used to cashless pay, come up to retirement. The win, win, win solution is the idea of a universal bank that will ensure that people who want to draw their pensions and benefits across a post office counter will still be able to do so.
The hon. Gentleman made a fairly disparaging reference to the internet. One of the major reasons why we have such a ubiquitous post office network in this country is that the Post Office was in at the birth of the telegraph service in 1871. The whole system was established around what was then stunning new technology. It is appropriate that we put the Post Office in the same position now, so that it can be in at the ground floor of e-commerce, which opens up the whole range of opportunities that the performance and innovation unit report rightly identified.

§ Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston)
It is a bit rich for the Conservative party to complain about the Post Office, particularly following the representations that I made to the previous Administration about the problems faced by Little Neston and Mickle Trafford, two rural post offices in my constituency. My hon. Friend the Minister will know that it is especially important for such businesses to increase the footfall in their shops and premises. Will he have words with his colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the 1060 Regions to ensure that information services from local government can be made available in local post offices? That would increase their overall business potential.

§ Mr. Johnson
My hon. Friend raises an important point. It was raised with us by the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, which identified the fact that sub-postmasters, sub-postmistresses and their staff currently provide a free, largely unrecognised—except by the communities that they serve—and certainly unrewarded service in distributing government information. The idea of making them government "general practitioners", properly trained and rewarded to provide government information, is one of the report's important recommendations. The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has been given the job of taking that recommendation forward.