Vince Cable

I am receiving an enormous response to letters I sent out informing residents of planned post office closures in Teddington Broad Street; Cambridge Park and Staines Road, Twickenham.

For thousands of people, the post office is more than just a shop. Many pensioners much prefer to use the local branch to collect their pension than use a bank and young mothers their child benefit. There is no alternative for posting bulky parcels and letters. Other shops in struggling shopping centres benefit from the footfall.

Yet the Post Office counters network is in retreat. Six others in my constituency have disappeared in recent years. Stanley Road residents lost their post office and went to Sixth Cross Road. That closed, so they went to Broad Street, Teddington. Now that is closing. Hampton lost two of its three branches and it was only after a big battle that I helped persuade the Post Office to keep another, nearby, in Swan Road.

The network has lost a lot of business to the banks and the government has not delivered on promises to develop new opportunities. But the three threatened local branches make money. I asked the minister in parliament to explain why profitable, unsubsidised, post offices are being closed. He says that the problem is 'high overheads' including managers in head office who are paid vast salaries for closing down branches; plus the redundancy packages to persuade the postmasters to close. Very strange economics.

I shall make strong representations against the closures. I and other MPs have been told however that the Post Office has a target of 2000 closures. Saving one may condemn another. We should not however quietly accept bad, lazy, government decisions which ignore both local communities and business opportunities.