Labour MP: Post offices are being bled dry

A Labour MP has spoken out today against the planned closure of 2,500 post offices, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Jim Fitzpatrick, the Post Office Minister, decided before Christmas that the Government would close 2,500 loss-making post offices, despite a Federation of Subpostmasters petition collecting four million signatures against the plan.

It has not yet been decided which offices should close, but many are expected to be in rural areas, leaving pensioners and other vulnerable people struggling.

Today Kate Hoey, MP for Vauxhall in south London, blamed the increasing closures of post offices on the government taking work away from them, causing many to lose too much money to be viable.

But the government has not been compensating them by increasing subsidies.

Hoey said "It seems that one part of the Government does not know what other parts are doing. There is nothing joined up about the way the Government has been treating the post office".

Age Concern has also warned that older people in rural areas were becoming more isolated as post offices closed. Margaret Creear, the organisation's campaigns project officer, said "The post office ensures local access for older people to the basic essential services.

"The post office is important for social contact – literally a lifeline – for many older people."

The Government defended its plans by claiming that it was continuing to subsidise the rural network, but that there was "widespread recognition that the current size of the network is unsustainable".

However, they did not clarify who this alleged "widespread" body of opinion consisted of, whereas four million signatures against the closures is a quite clearly 'widespread' body of opinion to the contrary.

The truth is that the government is not prepared to increase the subsidy to keep these important rural lifelines open. If the reason is that they haven't the money, then MPs should not even be considering voting billions more than we already pay away to the audit-failing EU.