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Greg Pope · 18-03-2008, 10:46

Tomorrow's vote is not really about keeping post offices open. It is an opposition day (when the opposition get to choose the topic) and the Tories will table a motion just saying keep post offices open - it will not say how this should be funded or done, it is simply designed to try and embarrass Labour MPs so they can say that we voted against a motion to keep post offices open. It is childish politics although, to be fair, it is exactly what we did when we were in opposition.

There are around 13,500 post offices in the UK of which around 9,000 lose money, currently at the rate of around half a million pounds a day. I'm opposed to the scale of the closure programme (nationally around 2,500 are due to close of which 5 are in Hyndburn) but we do need to face up to the the twin difficulties of finding people to run them (most closures are happening with the agreement of the postmaster) and funding them at a time when fewer and fewer people are using them. To give one example, I renewed my car tax online last week instead of using a post office, and millions of other people will do similarly.

18-03-2008, 10:46	#69
Greg Pope Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 65 Liked: 0 times Rep Power: 0	Re: Post Office Closures Tomorrow's vote is not really about keeping post offices open. It is an opposition day (when the opposition get to choose the topic) and the Tories will table a motion just saying keep post offices open - it will not say how this should be funded or done, it is simply designed to try and embarrass Labour MPs so they can say that we voted against a motion to keep post offices open. It is childish politics although, to be fair, it is exactly what we did when we were in opposition. There are around 13,500 post offices in the UK of which around 9,000 lose money, currently at the rate of around half a million pounds a day. I'm opposed to the scale of the closure programme (nationally around 2,500 are due to close of which 5 are in Hyndburn) but we do need to face up to the the twin difficulties of finding people to run them (most closures are happening with the agreement of the postmaster) and funding them at a time when fewer and fewer people are using them. To give one example, I renewed my car tax online last week instead of using a post office, and millions of other people will do similarly.