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Business of the House

May I thank the Speaker and you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for helping me, following the point of order that I made 13 or 14 days ago, to extract the secret contract between the Post Office and the Government in 2002? It revealed that the POCA—Post Office card account—was intended to be an interim step for account holders. Incredibly, however, the contract that went to benefit customers did not mention the fact that the card was meant to be interim or temporary—words which, for the benefit of the Leader of the House, are synonymous according to the dictionary. That is an extraordinary deceit pulled on millions of benefit holders. The fact that the Government now intend to shift all benefit recipients on to direct payment, regardless of what the Leader of the House just said, means that 14,400 post offices across the country may be in jeopardy because Adam Crozier came to the all-party group on sub-post offices and said that he needs only 4,000 to run a postal service. Can we please have a debate—