Contribution
I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for securing this timely debate. I was glad to have the opportunity to support him in doing so.
Hon. Members have described very powerfully the closures that are happening in their constituencies. In my constituency, the last remaining post office on the historic King’s Road is threatened. It is a long time since the King’s Road heyday of the swinging ’60s, when “Please Mr Postman” was first a hit. Unfortunately, since then the number of post office branches, on what is a very long road, has dwindled and there is now only one left. Shockingly, it is one of 108 directly managed branches across the country that the Post Office is planning to shut, 32 of which are in Greater London. The Post Office says that it is doing that to save money. I hope it is not doing it to pay for the costs of resolving the Horizon scandal. We will perhaps find out over time.
Meanwhile, we have a King’s Road post office that offers a buzzing, full service to lots of customers. There are regular queues—every time I go in there I have to wait 10 minutes to be served—and people love the staff. They tell me how worried they are at the possibility of it closing and how incredulous they are that it could even be considered. They depend on it. There simply are no other options nearby. All sorts of people go there.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) mentioned, it is particularly older and disabled people who rely on post office services for bill payments and access to cash, and they are the most worried. Around the corner from the post office, there is a number of sheltered accommodation and retirement housing blocks. The people who live there will be disproportionately affected. On hearing what was planned, I immediately launched a petition and was not surprised to get 1,000 signatures in a very short space of time. Many other people have got in touch with me to express their disappointment, dismay and concern.
I met Post Office management in early December and left them in no doubt about the anger and shock in the community. They said that the King’s Road post office was losing money. They also said that they might consider franchising it to a retail partner or an independent postmaster, but that no decision had yet been taken. Naturally, I asked to see a full, detailed analysis of the figures. They very kindly responded that they would let me have that in the new year, which we are now in. I will be seeing them again next week and pressing them to provide that analysis.
I expect to see not just the financial reasons for any decision to close the post office on the King’s Road, but a detailed impact assessment on how the change would affect the community and what steps would be taken to mitigate it. The number of customers matters, of course, but so does the type of customer that the post office serves. I have touched on this, but we cannot just brush aside the needs of older and disabled people: people who do not feel comfortable banking online, people who prefer to use cash. We cannot let some people feel that they are seen as less important, because they are not less important. We cannot let them feel they are left behind. They must not be left behind. We need to find a solution that serves the needs of everyone. That is why it is so important to me that the Post Office consults genuinely and authentically with the local community about the change. I will be seeking clarity on that as well.
Finally, I will try in the meeting to get clarification on the Post Office’s thinking on keeping the King’s Road post office open by franchising it. I have heard the concerns that hon. Members have expressed about franchising, but if it proves to be the only option—we are a long way off that—I intend to pitch in and do all I can to make it a success for my constituents.
When we lost a major post office on North End Road in the Fulham part of my constituency, I worked very closely with the local council to support a new franchisee. I was delighted to open a new post office on North End Road last year. It is a franchise, yes, but it provides a seven-day-a-week service from 9 in the morning to 9 in the evening. It provides a full range of services—even newspaper delivery, which does not happen very much. I was there just last week. It is thriving and very popular. People feel well served. That is good news for the people of Fulham, but I cannot help wondering why the Post Office management have to go down the franchising route. Why are directly managed branches so much more expensive to run than locally franchised branches? Perhaps the Minister can shed some light on that; I will be asking the Post Office.
I am delighted by the work that the Government are doing, and their determination to revitalise our high streets. I welcome the money that has gone into the Post Office, and I welcome the proposed increase in postmasters’ pay. I look forward to seeing, later this year, the Green Paper setting out options for the future of the Post Office, but it would be helpful at this stage to have clarity about the Government’s long-term aims. Is one of them to maintain a thriving network of post offices? I do hope so. Will banking services feature in the Green Paper? Some interesting ideas have been raised here today.
I can reassure my residents in Chelsea that I will continue to work with them, with the Post Office and with the Government to fight the closure of the King’s Road branch, and to ensure that no one is left behind.