The Petition of residents of the Borough of Havering and others,

Declares that the Petitioners believe that the post office network provides a vital service to local communities in both urban and rural areas. The Petitioners are concerned that the threatened withdrawal of services from local post offices, by the Government, will seriously affect the governance and more specifically, efficiency of the postal network, as well as damaging community cohesion around these post offices, which in many cases acts as a central and focal point for local community interaction.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform to reverse its announcement to end support for the Post Office Card Account 2010 thereby threatening the viability of thousands of post offices and further urges it to immediately halt its activities designed to kill off the account in advance of that date.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Andrew Rosindell, Official Report, 24 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 807.] [P000036]

Observation from the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform:

The Post Office is one of a number of ways to deliver Government services and still has an important role to play. The Government cannot ignore that people increasingly want to access services in different ways – using direct debits, ATMs and the phone and Internet. We believe in choice and cannot simply hand over work to the Post Office or force people to use the network.

The Post Office recognises the need to increase its range of services and products and that it needs to adapt to changing shopping habits and give sub-postmasters high quality products to sell which appeal to the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s customers.

We have supported Post Office Ltd (POL) in its efforts to develop its range of financial service products, with Government’s investment having included £500 million for the Horizon project to bring computer systems into every post office throughout the UK.

The current Post Office Card Account contract ends in March 2010. The Government decided that there will be a new service after 2010. This will be available nationally and customers will receive a similar set of services to those currently provided. EU procurement rules require us to tender competitively for this product, in order to ensure that best value for money for the taxpayer is achieved. The intention is to give a single contract and the Post Office is in a strong position to bid.

We have now started the procurement process, the first stage of which was the placement of a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). A copy of the notice has been placed in the Library.

The Government remains committed to allowing people to access their pension and benefit in cash at the Post Office if they choose to do so, and there is a range of accounts which makes that possible. This process will not affect those arrangements. We still believe that being paid into a bank or building society account is the best option for the vast majority of our customers, and around three in four of our customers are paid in this way. It gives them more choice about where and when they get their money, enables them to make savings on some bills by paying by direct debit and get interest on balances on their accounts. Many of these accounts can be used at Post Offices, still generating income for POL, which is also introducing its own new accounts.

DWP customers do not need to take any action at the moment. Existing Post Office Card Account customers can continue to be paid this way and new Post Office card accounts can still be opened. There will be plenty of publicity about the new arrangements in the future.