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Plenary, 21 Dec 2006

21 Dec 2006 · S2 · Plenary

Item of business

Post Offices

Morgan, Alasdair SNP South of Scotland Watch on SPTV

One of the roots of the problem is that there has been not a lack of Government support but a lack of consistent Government support for the post office network over the years, and there has been ambivalence about the post office. John Swinney alluded to the fact that when benefits payments through giro books were withdrawn, the facility to get payments via the Post Office card account was introduced, but people had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get them. They had to phone up to get the application form, and then submit it separately. People thought that it was much easier simply to have the money paid to them directly. Of course, the situation then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the Government can say, "Ah—but no one is using the post office."

The lunacy is that one part of the Government is paying the post office network a subsidy because it is not economic and another part—the TV licence payment collection system—is privatising its operations and taking money away from the post office, presumably so that the Government has to put more subsidy in at the other end. That is the economics of the madhouse.

When Stephen Byers launched the Post Office card account, there was no suggestion that it was time limited and would be around for only 10 years. The House of Commons understood that it would be around for ever, but the project suddenly became time limited and the Government has had to do a U-turn. What has happened has resulted in huge uncertainty for people who use post offices and for people who run them.

One of the biggest causes of post office closures is that replacement postmasters or postmistresses cannot be found when postmasters or postmistresses retire. There is no wonder that they cannot be found if people do not know whether there will be a business for them to run. That cause is, of course, the easiest cause for the Post Office to defend. It says, "We can't get anyone to do the job," and the Government says, "Nobody wants to run post offices." They simply wring their hands as if the matter had nothing to do with them, but the problems that we face stem from the complete lack of a coherent Government strategy. We must say what post offices are for first and then decide what action to take.

The Post Office was given a duty not to make avoidable closures after 1997, but nobody defined "avoidable closure". Without it being said what post offices should exist for, that duty meant nothing.

Euan Robson spoke about an issue that has not been explored nearly enough—sharing of services. The odd post office is run from a pub or a back room and services are occasionally shared, but no coherent strategy on that exists. Things simply happen in certain places by accident. We must consider the local delivery of Government and council services in rural areas, including post office services, and we must try to ensure that all of them—even though they may not be economical—are run sensibly. We must see post offices as part of our infrastructure. We do not stop tarmacking rural roads—at least some of them—because not many cars run on them, although we may have to deal with that matter once road charging kicks in. Post offices are as vital for local industry as roads are. As long as we continue to consider the post office network in isolation or simply as part of a business rather than as part of our essential infrastructure, we will have to come back to Parliament to fight to defend it. We must take a coherent approach.

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Plenary, 21 Dec 2006

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