Is that excellent interaction design and good customer service? (edit: not a rhetorical question fwiw)
The fact that it’s slightly more tiring for users like you who already know all the details and just want to get to the point is at most a minor drawback that’s easily justifiable by the accessibility gains.
To answer your question specifically: No, for a newspaper vendor that’s not great interaction design, but if you replace newspaper with any government service and shop owner with the government, it sounds perfect to me. I also struggle to imagine a scenario in which you’d need to access those services every single day, but I may be missing something there.
I notice you're not the person I asked btw. No need to start a vendetta just because I have a different opinion about one aspect of gov.uk. That's a bad look, for you.