Gideon Amos

I have learned today from the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) that Postman Pat is the model to follow, and just like Postman Pat himself, post office services may change, but they must not wither. We have also heard how much of a trusted institution our post offices are. The word “trust” came through several times from the hon. Members for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke) and for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice). We should never forget that it is the staff in those post offices and, of course, the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses who were so horrendously treated by the Horizon scandal who make post offices what they are and why they are so important to our communities. My hon. Friends and hon. Members across House are clearly great champions of their local post offices. My hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) mentioned his post office’s lost cats service, which I was interested to hear about, and my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) mentioned the outreach service. To paraphrase my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), in Wellington in my constituency the postal service was fixed so many times it was definitely broken, and now we no longer have one at all for a town of 15,000 people. Many other hon. Members highlighted the importance of post offices as hubs for their communities, including the hon. Members for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) and for Stockton West (Matt Vickers). I completely agree with the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) that the King’s Road without a post office seems unimaginable. I wish him well in his campaign. I was somewhat disappointed that the Minister did not comment on the fact that banking hubs, which are being created around the country, are not providing post office services despite having “Post Office” written on the outside of the building. I would very much like to follow that up with the Minister on another occasion; it seems an obvious solution. As the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire said, securing the next agreement for banking hubs is incredibly important, and we certainly support the Government in achieving that. Finally, I congratulate the hon. Members for North Durham (Luke Akehurst), for Bournemouth West (Jessica Toale), for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) and for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on their petitions. The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark is also continuing his excellent house-sitting services by sitting in the House this afternoon and making sure that the debate went on as needed. I will leave the House with a couple of quotations from my petition about the post office in Wellington. One petitioner said: “I feel so sorry for those people without a car—particularly the frail and elderly. They have to trek in all winds and weather” to the next village several miles away. They continued: “You see so many villages with their own post office, yet a growing town like Wellington doesn’t—it’s bizarre.” Mary said: “Why was it not considered at the same time as the banking hub, as it’s run by the post office?” The first citizen of Wellington, our mayor, said that “since 2019 when the…Post Office closed, at least two business owners” tried to operate postal services but found that the funding given did not make it a viable option. That is why we desperately need a main post office for the town of Wellington and its 15,000 people. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the future of local Post Office services.