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Postal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendment 24, to which my noble friend will respond shortly. I apologise for not taking part in the debates on the Bill. As noble Lords know, I have long been interested in the Post Office, and in particular in the post office network in rural areas. However, working on two Bills at once is a challenge. The references in my noble friend’s amendment to, ""the services the company’s post offices may provide to the public under arrangements with a government department"" and, ""any additional services the company’s post office may provide to the public"" underline my conviction that we need a secure post office network. Over the years, we have seen many closures. There were closures when we were in government, and there has been a horrendous number of closures since this Government have been in office. Perhaps I may also raise with the Minister the future of postal card accounts. I have been fighting on this issue since 2000, when the Postal Services Bill went through. I am sorry if this matter was dealt with in Committee, but I could not be here. It is crucial in some areas for people to be able to access their benefits through the card account. I and many others believe that a lot of pressure has been put on individuals to receive their benefits in other ways, such as having them paid into a bank. As noble Lords know, this has had a huge effect on the profitability of sub-post offices. I accept that it costs more to put business through the post office network; but it seems odd that we cannot find a system for the postal account that does not cost the amount quoted over the years of 99p per transaction. I understand that that is unacceptably high. I raise this because we have seen, and continue to see, many closures of rural post offices. At the same time, there are very few banks left in rural areas, so many people, particularly older members of the community and those with young children, find accessing their entitlements extremely difficult. I hope that the Minister will give me a reassuring answer about the Government’s thinking on this. More importantly, I hope that we will free up the Post Office to find new work: that is what the Bill is about. I cannot remember the figures, but the Post Office is one of the biggest providers of foreign currency to those who travel overseas. Local authorities also have big role to play in helping post offices to help themselves. It is difficult to be specific: I accept the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, that none of us wants to see further closures. However, sadly in some places there will be further closures, and they will not necessarily be in rural areas; some of them will be in urban areas. The Government gave a commitment that there should be a post office accessible within three miles of every person. When we debated this previously in the House, we said that if you are elderly or pushing a child in a pram, three miles is actually six miles. These are practical issues. I apologise to noble Lords for my intervention, but I am very concerned about the future of the Post Office card account, and hope that any new business will benefit not only the Post Office itself, but also those who use post offices, and particularly the most vulnerable users. I heartily support my noble friend’s Amendment 24.