Post Office Network

Part of Business of the House – in the House of Commons at 12:24 pm on 14 December 2006.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of James Paice James Paice Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) 12:24, 14 December 2006

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I was beginning to think that the "stop Jim" campaign applied to me. This statement is another stage in the decline in rural services that we have witnessed in the past 10 years. The Secretary of State has got this the wrong way round. He rightly talked in his statement about the need for more services and access to more business in post offices, but he couches that in terms of the Post Office dealing with such matters centrally. Should he not be setting individual postmasters and postmistresses free through a much freer contract, so that they themselves can use the entrepreneurial spirit that he rightly espouses to get more business, in order to make their businesses viable? Only then should he make any necessary closures. Announcing closures before he gives postmasters and postmistresses that freedom is completely the wrong approach.