The hon. Member makes a very good point. These were all vital services. Not so very long ago, post offices were central to communities up and down the country. They also provided some of the most spectacular examples of architecture, and they dominated our town centres. The local Post Office was where I applied for my first driving licence. I opened my first savings account there and queued for what seemed like hours every Christmas to make sure that the family’s cards and presents went off safely to various parts of Australia and Canada—but not any more. The Post Office I grew up with in the 1960s had 25,000 branches. In 2021, that figure had more than halved to 11,415, with more than half of those listed as vulnerable. The organisation itself lost £597 million in the same year.

In Scotland we have the biggest problem in the UK, having lost more than 6% of our post offices in the past two years alone. In Edinburgh West, two have closed and one has been relocated to a different area in the past year. As I said earlier, this problem is not isolated to Scotland or to Edinburgh West. One third of rural post offices are now offered as part-time outreach services.