John McDonnell
Redwood speaks up for Local Post Offices
Following a debate in the House of Commons yesterday, The Rt Hon John Redwood MP said:
“The government removed its own business from Post Office counters, diverting it to the banks. This undermined the prospects of many small Post Offices. When I asked the Secretary of State if the savings on government activities outweighed all the extra losses, borrowings and closures of Post Offices, he did not know! What was it all for?”
The following is the full text of his question to the government:
Mr. Redwood: I am grateful to the Secretary of State, who is very courteous. Can he tell us what public expenditure savings for Government Departments have been made from diverting business from Post Office services to banks, and how they compare with the extra subsidy, losses and borrowings needed by the Post Office on account of the lost business?
Mr. Darling: I would want to give the right hon. Gentleman an entirely accurate picture, so I shall write to him about it. He may concede, however, that as long as I have heard him in the Chamber, he has been one of the most severe critics of Governments—his as well as ours—who spend too much. As I said at the start, successive Governments have rightly been under pressure to cut their administrative costs. Part of the administrative costs of the Department for Work and Pensions, where I was the Secretary of State for four years, related to benefit payments. It seems to me that if people choose to get their pensions paid into a bank account, the Government should facilitate that rather than stand in the way. The right hon. Gentleman will know—the James review is relevant—that at the last election, the Conservative Opposition banked those savings. Somehow to suggest that the Conservatives would not have made that change or would reverse the process is slightly disingenuous.
