Written questions, answers and statements

Post Offices: Franchises

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Question for Department for Business and Trade

UIN 56251, tabled on 2 June 2025

Question

Neil Coyle
Labour
Bermondsey and Old Southwark
Commons

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to monitor the level of support provided to people working in franchised Post Offices.

Answer

Gareth Thomas
Labour
Harrow West
Commons

Answered on

9 June 2025

While I regularly engage with the Post Office CEO about the direction of the company, Post Office has the freedom to operate the branch network within the parameters set by Government. Therefore, the level of support to people working in franchised branches is an operational matter for Post Office.

Government subsidy funding goes to Post Office, not franchise operators of branches directly. Government has confirmed up to £83 million of network subsidy this financial year to support Post Office with the costs of delivering Government policy requirements, and provided £10.9 million of funding in FY 24/25 to help initiate the Transformation Plan, which aims to put postmasters’ interests at the heart of Post Office. Further multi-year funding for the Transformation Plan and network subsidy is being considered as part of the upcoming Spending Review.

Answered by

Department for Business and Trade
Named day
Named day questions only occur in the House of Commons. The MP tabling the question specifies the date on which they should receive an answer. MPs may not table more than five named day questions on a single day.