John Thurso MP

POCA2 vital for Post Office network

Local MP John Thurso has again warned the Government that the Post Office needs the replacement Post Office card account (POCA2) if it is to maintain a sustainable rural network.

Winding up in a Commons debate initiated by the Liberal Democrats on the successor Post Office card account, the MP said:

"Our constituents value and want to maintain their post offices. They do not trust banks but they do trust the Post Office. The replacement card account contract is wanted by the customers and it is vital to the future of the network.

"The Government has been overseeing the systematic removal of business from the Post Office and it is time to stop. It is time to support the Post Office and allow it to adapt to the 21st century. For that Post office card account 2 is needed, and needed by the Post Office."

Criticising the Government's obsessive centralising of services and the loss of facilities from local Social Security offices, the MP drew attention to the opportunity which Ministers had to use the Post office network as the front line for a whole range of Government services to the citizen.

He said:

"For a very modest cost to the Department for Work and Pensions there would be a massive increase in the quality of service. People would not be forced to spend many hours on the telephone to Clydebank and would not end up with the wrong answer at the end of it all. The needs of some of the most vulnerable in our society, including pensioners, the unbanked, the disabled and all those on benefit could receive the help they require within their own local community. The Post Office, postmaster and postmistresses are trusted. It is that human contact that is missing but that is so important to many people."

Attached is a full copy of John Thurso's speech

9.40 pm

John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD): This has been a good and timely debate, and I hope it has served to make clear to the Government the strength of feeling on both sides of the House and how much all hon. Members value their post offices and the

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part that the Post Office card account plays in maintaining their post offices and their footfall. Indeed, even the Secretary of State made that point.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Jenny Willott) made an eloquent case in opening the debate. She was generous in taking interventions, which allowed many hon. Members who were not able to take part in the debate to make a point. She went straight to the heart of the matter: whether the Government should be allowed to kill the Post Office by slow stages or whether the Post Office should be helped to transform into a 21st century service-a point that the Secretary of State failed to address. Indeed, the highlight of his contribution appeared to be to tell us that a purely commercial post office network would consist of only 4,000 post offices. I wonder whether that is actually the DWP's target. However, I welcome the fact that he has promised us a statement, and I hope that it will be the statement that we would all like to hear. I also hope that he will take away from the debate the strength of feeling in the House.

The hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) made the point in a customarily passionate and excellent intervention that we all want the card account. There is no hon. Member on either side of the House who does not want the card account and who does not want it to go to the Post Office. He made the valid, absolutely telling point that that is not because we particularly like the card account, but because our constituents tell us it is what they want and need. He and the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff) have produced an excellent report-succinct and to the point, with very good, albeit not bold, points-that goes to the heart of the matter.

I was glad that the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire referred in his report to the work done by the Treasury Committee. Indeed, he quoted extensively from it. When I was serving on the Treasury Committee, we went into this in considerable depth. One of the interesting points was a question that I asked of an official on the comparison of cost between the Post Office card account and other services, and the answer was that it is an apples and pears comparison: the two costs are quite different. We should take that point on board.

The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), whom I like to think of as a friend if not a right hon. Friend, was his usual self. He made two charges of me. First, he accused me of sending him reams of Focuses, to which I plead not guilty. I think that he knows me well enough to know that that is not my style. Secondly, he accused me of being an opportunist, and I plead guilty. I take every opportunity I can to support my constituents. I took the opportunity before POCA was announced to ask the Government to change their mind about the evisceration of post offices. I took the opportunity to support POCA when the Government did not want to introduce it, and I take the opportunity now to ask the Government to give us POCA 2.

Sir Gerald Kaufman: I certainly regard the hon. Gentleman as a friend for giving way. I was accusing not him of distributing Focuses-they would get lost in his vast constituency-but the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Leech), who remains absent from this debate, as he has from the entire debate, as we shall make clear in Manchester.

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John Thurso: I shall remain as free with my remarks as the right hon. Gentleman is with his.

We heard two excellent Liberal Democrat Back-Bench contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) and for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell). They made it clear why hon. Members on both sides of the House feel so passionately that Post Office card accounts should be allowed to continue for a second generation.

We want post offices not simply because we want post offices, but because they are economically valuable and provide a social good. As many Members have said, in rural parts of the world, post offices are the only place where many services are available. I will not bore the House with a recitation of the small villages in north-west Sutherland or the middle of Caithness that would have no opportunities if POCA 2 were not given to the Post Office.

There is an opportunity here for the Post Office. In all my discussions with representatives of the post offices-the sub-postmasters-they say that they want post offices to transform. They want to provide a 21st century post office that can be profitable. However, they need the breathing space to get from here to there. That is what is absolutely critical about the award of POCA 2. Indeed, sub-postmasters have very good plans to make the post office a post bank-plans that I think many Members present would support.

There is another point that we should take on board. The Department for Work and Pensions has been closing offices left, right and centre, including in my constituency. People now have to travel for three hours, in places where there is no public transport, to access a face-to-face interview. They have grave difficulties, and I could tell many stories about that.