Labour poised to score another Post Office own goal

By Rob Merrick on Nov 2, 08 01:50 PM

FEW decisions have damaged the Government as much as its wilful destruction of the Post Office network, with 38 branches axed across Merseyside and Cheshire.

Yet, incredibly, this terrible own-goal will be repeated if a decision currently on the desk of James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, goes the wrong way.

Within weeks, Mr Purnell must decide whether the post office card account (POCA) - used by 5m people without a bank account - should remain in public hands, or be privatised.

One estimate is that the average sub-postmaster will lose £249 each month - 10% of net pay - if the contract is handed to PayPoint, or another private-sector rival.

The National Federation of Sub-Postmasters has warned that a further 3,000 post offices could be lost - even more than the 2,500 disappearing under the current closure programme.

Two years ago, the Government insisted that EU competition rules forced it to put the contract out to tender, but the world has surely changed since then.

In this new world, it would be a scandal to stick to discredited free-market dogma. Post offices have become more, not less, important as trusted hubs of community cohesion.

A staggering 258 MPs have signed a Parliamentary motion insisting that "retaining the successor of the POCA as a Post Office product is essential to the viability of the network".

Among them are George Howarth (Knowsley North and Sefton East), Edward O'Hara (Knowsley South), Bob Wareing (West Derby), John Pugh (Southport), Peter Kilfoyle (Walton), Frank Field (Birkenhead), Claire Curtis-Thomas (Crosby), Helen Southworth (Warrington South), Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston), Louise Ellman (Riverside) and Joe Benton (Bootle). Some Labour MPs argue for a "People's Bank", based on the Post Office and its surviving 14,500 neighbourhood branches, to pro- vide the vital public service of encouraging small savings and a habit of thrift.

The last time I quizzed Gordon Brown on post office closures he insisted, misleadingly, that it was "a decision that is being made by the Post Office itself".

The Prime Minister will have no alibi if the POCA goes.