Welcome for Government U-turn on Post Office Card Account (Wantage and Didcot Liberal Democrats)

Wantage and Didcot Liberal Democrats <info@wantagelibdems.org.uk>

Welcome for Government U-turn on Post Office Card Account

November 17, 2008 12:26 PM

Alan Armitage outside the Post Office in Steventon in Oxfordshire

Liberal Democrats in South Oxfordshire have welcomed a decision by the Government to abandon proposals to hand over the payment of pensions and benefits from post offices to a private company. Thousands of elderly people, carers, disabled people and claimants in the towns and villages in the area currently use their local post offices to receive their pensions and benefits through the Post Office Card Account.

But earlier this year ministers invited bids from private companies as well as the Post Office for the contract to pay out pensions and benefits from 2010. Had the Post Office lost the contract, up to 6,000 more post offices could have gone to the wall as a result of the lost business. These unmanaged closures would have been in addition to the 2,500 "managed" closures which the Government has already announced.

"The Government's U-turn is welcome here," said Alan Armitage, parliamentary spokesman for Wantage constituency Lib Dems. "It means our post offices have a better chance of staying open. But this is a U-turn that should never have had to happen. If they had listened to the protests surrounding recent Post Office closures, the Government would have realised the importance of post offices to communities and awarded the new contract to the network without these months of delay. Instead, local branches have had to deal with the uncertainty that ministerial dithering has caused."

Lib Dems are also calling on the Government to carry out another U-turn. Said Mr Armitage: "They must stop putting pressure on pensioners and benefit claimants to get their cash paid through the banks. Many do not have bank accounts, or cannot easily visit a bank branch. In any case, people should have a free choice."