22/07/2010

Robin Walker, MP for Worcester, has welcomed statements made today by the new Minister for Postal Affairs, Ed Davey MP, about the future of Britain's post office network.

The Minister said that post offices are "not for sale", irrespective of any plans to part-privatise Royal Mail and that the although his immediate objective is to avoid any further contraction of the network, his long-term goal is expansion both in terms of services rendered - such as banking through partnerships with banks and even its own bank - and national reach.

Robin was attending the first meeting of the new parliamentary session of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Post Offices.  The event was also attended by the George Thompson, the General Secretary of the National Federation of Sub-postmasters, who welcomed the Minister's approach for the post office network and said that "Ed Davey is committed, genuine and I believe that he is going to deliver."

The Minister was also pleased to announce that he had secured a sum of £180 million for the Social Network Payment for next April, an increase of one-fifth on last year's total of £150 million.

Robin is a longstanding supporter of the Conservative Party's campaign ‘Keep Our Post Offices Open' and led a long campaign to oppose Labour's Post Office closures in Worcester and he said after the meeting:

"The last Labour Government presided over the closure of nearly 5,000 post offices between 2002 and 2009, including my local Post Office on Foregate Street, despite huge public opposition.  Now it is clear that we have a Government that not only wants to reverse this retreat of our local post offices but wishes also to reinvigorate and expand the network.  I am particularly excited by the possibility of a Post Office Bank, or Postbank, which could greatly revitalise the banking sector and provide more choice for consumers, so I look forward to the Minister's full policy statement in the autumn."

"In the meantime, I believe that encouraging more co-operation between the big high street banks and the Post Office so that customers can access their accounts in post offices is a great step forward.  There are many different services that post offices are capable of offering to local people and I am glad that the new Government is examining new uses for a currently underused network. People in Worcester want Post Offices to keep serving the public and I was encouraged by the new Minister's focus on achieving this aim."