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Post Office Restructuring

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), who made some perfectly valid points about economic and social changes, which are reducing the footfall in post offices, and ended with some positive suggestions about how one might increase turnover. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff) and the Select Committee on their report, and on their diligence and persistence. They did exactly what a Select Committee should do—hence the attendance at this debate. Indeed, one could argue that this, rather than the one being held in the Chamber, is today's topical debate. I declare an interest: 35 years ago I was economic adviser to the Post Office, which generated me a modest entitlement to an occupational pension, which I declare. The house names of Hampshire villages tell a story. The Old Station house marks where Dr. Beeching visited us; the Old School house marks the retreat of the village school; the Old Rectory marks the retreat of the Church of England. In my constituency we now increasingly have houses called the Old Post Office. We have one in my village. The Government can say that the process did not begin in 1997—and they are right. In North-West Hampshire we face the prospect of losing, within six months, more than a quarter of our remaining post offices. That is a tremendous shock to the system—a disproportionate and, I believe, wholly indefensible hit. That is roughly twice as many as the national average. I have had the same dialogue with Mr. Nickolls at the Post Office that I expect other hon. Members have had. He is the executioner of the programme. He has made it clear that if I secure a reprieve in one place, there will be a fresh conviction elsewhere. It is quite clear that the target is 2,500. There are some very perverse results. Ashford Hill lost its conventional post office 10 years ago, and it was relocated to the back of the pub, the Ship. People can go in and ask Reg Rabbetts for a pint of lager and a book of stamps. It is a popular facility, in a village with no bus service. That is now being held out as the model—outreach—but it is now proposed to close the post office at the back of the pub.