Government axe looms over Post Offices in New Year- Bruce

2.45.43pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 14th Dec 2006

Malcolm Bruce questioned Alistair Darling about the Government's post office proposals which will close many rural branches

Criticising the Government for the statement today announcing the planned closure of around 2,500 rural post offices, Malcolm Bruce MP berated Secretary, Alistair Darling for the Government's long-term mishandling of the post office network.

Mr Bruce said:

"The Government is bailing out a ship that ministers have holed below the water-line. Instead of decimating the network, they should be looking for new possible business and services that can sustain post offices to serve the maximum number of communities. Wide scale closures will mean thousands of people will be cut off from the Post Office network and put to inconvenience and hardship because the Government didn't have the wit to plan for a sustainable network."

Challenging the DTI Secretary in the House of Commons on what provisions will be in place to assess the impact of the closures in areas where post office masters and mistresses were thinking of retiring, the Gordon MP added:

"The point I pressed Alistair Darling on and which he misinterpreted- either accidentally or otherwise- is that we need to have recognition of those Post Offices where the person running the office would like to retire but the community would wish to see the post office remain open.

"The Government needs to ensure that either compensation can be made for retirements alongside provisions seeking to recruit new operators to take over the service or alternatively, provisions should be in place to allow the Post Office master or mistress to sell on the business to a new operator. Otherwise we will find that people are either forced to stay on when they wish to retire, or the office will be forced to close because there are no provisions for finding a successor. Communities cannot be short-changed as part of these wide-scale cuts. The recent survey of post offices in my constituency revealed that a number of offices may well be faced with this predicament."

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

• In his Statement to the House of Commons today, the Secretary of State announced the publication of a consultation document and a consultation period will be open until 8 March 2007.