MPs slam Post Office for ignoring the people

Postal November 18 2016

Dozens of MPs from across the political divide and all parts of the UK demanded that Post Office bosses be held accountable for the growing crisis in the company during a lively Parliamentary debate at Westminster yesterday.

Set against the backdrop of a massive round of cuts and closures, national industrial action by Post Office workers, and the Government’s recent announcement of a formal consultation, the discussion attracted many more Parliamentarians than had been expected.

Speaking to the motion That this House has considered the future of the Post Office, Cotswolds Member Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said: “As a result of its decoupling from Royal Mail in 2013, the Post Office has lacked an overall strategy.

“It should now be rethinking its whole enterprise, which should be one of growth, rather than one of contraction – what the Post Office needs is a proper business model for the future,” added the outspoken Conservative backbencher.

“If the Post Office were Tesco, it would be thinking not about closing profitable branches but about how to make those branches more profitable by providing a more attractive service for the customer,” he continued, urging the Government Minister for Post Offices, Margot James,to work with MPs and “let us see how we can make the Post Office work better for its customers.”

Luton North’s Kelvin Hopkins had formally moved the Motion, in a robust speech which sharply criticised the Government for having “failed to deliver on its 2010 promise to turn the Post Office into a genuine Front Office for Government’ and to grow its financial services’.

“Some 59 post offices are being closed or franchised, and the Post Office’s defined benefit pension scheme is being terminated. That has all come about as a direct consequence of the separation of the Post Office from Royal Mail when Royal Mail was privatised and cuts to Post Office funding followed.”

The Government must stop the cutsparticularly the proposed closures and franchisingand bring together stakeholders, including the Post Office itself, trade unions, and industry and customer representatives to develop a meaningful and convincing plan for the future,” he insisted.

Speaking directly to Business Minister Margot James, Mr Hopkins urged her to deliver on the Government’s pledge to make the Post Office a “Front Office for Government” and set up a UK Post Office bank and to halt the use of “public money to subsidise the outsourcing of Post Office services to retailers.”

As well as Labour and Conservative Members, the debate also heard contributions from MPs representing both rural and urban areas and constituencies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Mhairi Black, from Paisley& Renfrewshire South, spoke movingly of how her constituents would be “devastated” by the closure of Paisley Crown Office, and, in common with several other contributors, she slammed the Post Office’s consultation procedures.

The company had ignored the many alternative suggestions made at public meetings, Ms Black explained, and had seemed determined to go ahead with franchising the service to retailer WH Smith regardless of theopinions of the community and local small businesses.

“What does WH Smith know about postal services?” the MP asked, and stressed: “If the Post Office is seeking a franchise partner, the most obvious candidate is surely Royal Mail.”

North Ayrshire& Arran Member Patricia Gibson told of how she had campaigned within her own community, “going door-to-door with others gathering hundreds and thousands of signatures on a petition to save local Crown post offices.

“It did not matter to the powers that be. In the event, vital and much-beloved post offices were closed,” she said.

Crown Post Offices are “the beating heart of a community,” Ms Gibson continued, adding: “That is even more true of our rural communities, boosting their diversity and resilience as well as protecting jobs and customer service.”

The MP referred to the success of the French Post Office in establishing La Banque Postale’ and suggested that the UK Post Office should also move in this direction.

Welsh constituency MPs Albert Owen (Ynys Mon) and Mark Williams (Ceredigion) expressed similar frustrations, Mr Owen accusing the company of ignoring a local petition – “we won the argument, but the Post Office came back with the same proposal to close the same offices” – and Mr Williams highlighting the “complete inability of the Post Office to listen to the many representations that have been made.

“We were not surprised that WHSmith emerged as the franchisee in Aberystwyth,” he continued, adding: “Of the 28 branches where franchise partners have been announced this year, 27 have been with WHSmith.”

South Antrim Member Danny Kinahan also criticised Post Office chiefs over the programme, saying: “The Post Office is not listening, but it needs to.

“I make my plealet us all talk to each other, consider towns and the centres of communities, and work together. We can all learn from each other, including Members from Northern Ireland and Scotlandall the devolved Governments – so that the Post Office must talk to us before it starts closures and we can work out how to save a town’s post office.”

Conservative backbenchers Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) and Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge& Malling) urged the Minister to save their local Crown Offices from the axe, and also to develop new revenue streams from banking and financial services.

“Hon. Members have made several useful proposals during the debate, and I urge the Government to consider them carefully, because Post Office Ltd itself does not seem to have any obvious plans to introduce new services or increase revenue in a way that could help,” said Mr Fysh.

“We need to look at the Post Office; it is in danger of running out of control and its governance issues require serious work and attention. I urge the Government to take an active role in that,” he urged, “because their customers up and down the land really depend on the Post Office.”

Mr Tugenhant told his colleagues that he had written to the Post Office in early October asking for details of the proposed closure of Tonbridge Crown Office. “After a month, they had not responded, and when I finally did get a response it did not answer the questions I had asked.

“That was particularly disappointing because the Tonbridge Crown post office, like many around the country, as we have heardindeed, as far afield as Northern Ireland and the Cotswoldsis essential to the community, just as post offices are across our land.”

And Labour backbenchers were even more scathing about the company’s programme and its refusal to listen to the people, or their elected representatives.

Bermondsey& Old Southwark MP Neil Coyle said: “It is very difficult for Post Office representatives to listen to localcommunities when they do not even attend a meeting. The Walworth Society in my constituency set up a public meeting with councillors and myself, and the Post Office did not even turn up.”

He reminded fellow Members that “the incomes and pensions of the current staff are being put at risk” and added that this “completely undermines the commitment that the Prime Minister made at the Conservative conference to a more responsible capitalism.”

Fellow Labour Member Catherine West (Hornsey & Wood Green) asked the Minister to confirm whether the Government’s consultation would be a more genuine process than the cons
ultations carried out by the Post Office.

“Time and again, we have had an announcement by the Post Office, a rather anodyne meeting and then a sense of resignationa sense that we’re just going to close them anyway’,” Ms West explained.

“I fear that that is why many people tell us that they feel disconnected from national politics,” she continued.

“Thousands of petitioners stand outside in the snow, hail and rain, collecting signatures that their MP cannot even get a response to. I am sounding a bit frustrated because that is how we feelthose of us stood outside the post office, Saturday after Saturday, getting signatures for petitions but not getting a response.

“I hope the Government will look again and genuinely consider what we have to say. I want an assurance from the Minister that the voices of Members of Parliament will be heard and that the consultation is not just a sham.”

In response to the debate, Government Minister Margot James (Stourbridge) disappointed MPs by defending the franchising plans and surprised them by arguing that this would improve the service to customers.

She said that it was unlikely that the Post Office be reunited with Royal Mail, saying: “I do not see that happening,” but in response to the calls for a new Post Bank, Ms James said that the closures of bank branches “does create an opportunity for the Post Office” and promised that she would be “lobbying, alongside Members, for the Post Office to embrace this opportunity even further,” adding: “I do see some grounds for hope in that sector.”

Speaking after the debate, general secretary Dave Ward said: “It’s clear that support for the Post Office spreads right across the political divide and to every corner of the nation.

“And it’s also apparent that, like us, MPs are becoming increasingly frustrated by the refusal of the Post Office to listen to the people of the UK and their elected representatives.

“This makes us all the more determined to step up our nationwide campaign for a People’sPost Office that works for everyone.”