Beith welcomes Government u-turn on Post Office Card Account and fights on for Post Offices

1.00.00pm GMT Tue 18th Nov 2008

Sir Alan Beith MP and Liberal Democrats in Northumberland 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 Berwick upon Tweed constituency 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.

Sir Alan Beith MP said

"The Government's u-turn is very welcome as it means our remaining post offices have a better chance of staying open. But this is a u-turn that should never have had to happen in the first place. The Government should 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 and unnecessary contracting processes has caused. Hopefully, local branches can now plan ahead knowing they will continue to pay out pensions and benefits. But we are also calling on the Government to carry out another u-turn.

"They must stop putting pressure on pensioners and benefit claimants to get their cash paid through the banks. People should have a choice."

In the Berwick constituency, Sir Alan Beith is continuing to fight for a full review of the consultation process after serious flaws were apparently discovered in Post Office Limited's decision-making.

After errors were discovered in the Decision Booklet published by Post Office Limited and submissions appeared not to have been taken into account, Sir Alan Beith MP challenged Post Office managers to provide evidence that they had taken all the submissions into account. But although this was promised, no information has been received and now a formal Freedom of Information request has been lodged to force Post Office Limited to demonstrate they did look properly at all the comments they received.

Alan Beith added

"I have repeatedly said this consultation was a sham and now it seems Post Office Limited have shown through their own publication that this is the case."