Government must come clean on post office closures

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 24th Apr 2007

Local Liberal Democrat MP, Dr Evan Harris, today joined Lib Dem leader Menzies Campbell in demanding the Government come clean on the true impact on local communities of its post office closure programme.

The Government plans to close 2500 post offices but has conveniently delayed its response to a consultation on the proposals from March until after the local elections on 3rd May.

"The people of Oxford are deeply worried about losing their local post offices and this government is deliberately concealing the details of the post office closures until after the local elections.

"The Government must come clean and produce details of its post office closures immediately."

The South East region has already experienced 358 post office closures, the second highest number of closures for a UK region under the 'Urban Reinvention Programme'.

"8 Post Offices have closed in Oxford West and Abingdon between 1999 and 2006 leaving many people travelling long distances to their closest post office."

There have been 4,000 post office closures since Labour came to power and there were 3,500 closures under the last Conservative Government.

"Labour and the Conservatives have failed to support this vital network. Only the Liberal Democrats have fully funded proposals for investing an extra £2 billion into the Post Office network."

"The Government behaves as if the Post Office's decline is inevitable and nothing to do with them. But time and again - on pensions, road tax, television licences and passports - they have taken business away.

"Losing these services cost the network £168 million last year compared to an operating loss of £111 million. In other words, the value of lost Government business is more than the losses of the entire network'.