David Nuttall - Bury North

Yesterday, in the last major debate before Easter MP’s debated an issue chosen by the Conservatives. The chosen issue was the present closure programme of our post offices. The Labour Government is presently embarked on closing down over 2000 of our local post offices. This is on top of the thousands that have already been closed across the country. It seems to me that the Government which is responsible for running the post office network has done absolutely nothing to try and revive the fortunes of the post offices in the light of what I accept is difficult competitin from the new technologies of the email and the text message. But the internet has also brought new opportunities such as the millions of goods that are bought an dsold each year over the internet both through normal retailers selling online and through auction sites like ebay. All this could be more business for our post offices. Instead the Government has actually made it more difficult for post offices by removing sources of business from them for example you can no longer renew your television licence at a post office and pensioners have to have their pensions paid into a bank account now rather than being able to collect it in cash from the post office. The Conservatives proposed to call a halt to the closure programme but their motion was defeated by 20 votes even though several Labour MP’s who accepted the points the Conservatives were making voted with the Conservatives and against their own Labour Government.