Postal Services Bill

My Lords, one of the best things that the Government have said in the context of the Bill is that there will be no more mass closures of post offices. I am very conscious of the damage done by closures in recent years in an area that is not necessarily ““urban deprived”” but where quite a lot of poor people live. It is the area surrounding Vauxhall, which in the past few years has lost three post offices. The result is that the nearest post office is right across Vauxhall Bridge, half way to Victoria station. Whenever one goes past or tries to use that post office, there are queues that reach out into the street. It has been a disastrous programme for that part of London. Therefore, I very much welcome what the Government have said about closures. Of course, one cannot have an absolute ban on closures because inevitably sub-postmasters die or fall ill and businesses are sold. Although great efforts are made to try to keep the post office going, it cannot always be guaranteed. However, that is totally different from the sort of mass closure programme that we had over the past decade. Like the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, I have been very impressed by the potential offered by Post Office Local. Up to 2,000 Post Office Locals may be coming forward in the next few years, offering the great majority of services that are available in a Crown post office. They will be able to offer the customer a much better deal because they will be open during shop hours. One knows that many of the shopkeepers, who are often from minority communities, work very long hours and their shops remain open long hours—and so, of course, will the post office services offered by Post Office Local. This is perhaps one of the brightest and most optimistic scenes on the horizon. It will make post offices a good deal more viable than they have been. However, post offices also need new business. I have been impressed by what I have heard about the plans—in some cases these are already being trialled—to let these post offices offer identity services, as it were. They can check identity through biometric photographs and this service is already being used by the UK Border Agency. There must be government departments which could make good use of such services. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench can expand on that. I too have talked with the chief executive and was impressed by what she had to say about the range of services which need to be available in post offices. This will require investment and nobody is going to pretend that Post Office Ltd will become a fully self-sustaining business; it cannot. It will continue to require support, and everybody has recognised that. However, it seems to me that if it is given the freedom to expand into new areas and the Government support it through government departments using its services, thus enabling it to be, as it were, the front office for government, there is every chance that the post office network will survive and prosper in a way that it has not done in recent decades. Therefore, I very much support what is being planned. I accept the argument that my noble friend put forward when we were discussing a previous amendment —that some of the proposals we are putting forward may not be necessary, but no doubt we will hear about that. In the mean time, I very much congratulate the Government on the efforts that have been made to make Post Office Ltd a more viable business than it has been in the past.