---

Welsh Affairs

I have spoken to the Secretary of State about the matter, and I know that the Minister has been to see him about it. It has been raised on a cross-party basis. This is another instance of Wales being slightly different: we were not bailed out when we should have been, although the Treasury bailed out our counterparts in England. Finally, let me deal with the thorny issue of post office closures in Wales. A huge number of post offices have disappeared over the past couple of years, and it would be awful if we lost any more. As we know, post offices are a focal point for communities. I live in a village that contains one post office, which is also the village shop. The village is 5 miles from the nearest town, and although I have a car and can drive, other people are unable to make the journey. I believe passionately that we should halt the closure process. According to the New Economics Foundation, on average a post office contributes £310,000 to the local economy each year—although obviously that does not apply to the one in my village—and £120,000 is spent directly on local goods and services. Each post office saves small businesses in its vicinity about £270,000. In deprived urban areas, 61 per cent. of customers use their post offices to gain access to free community services, while 69 per cent. do so in rural areas. About 75 per cent. of post offices have a shop or other business attached to them, and are the only places where local people can withdraw cash. In March 2001 there were 1,399 post offices operating in Wales. By March 2007 there were only 1,146, 18 per cent. having disappeared. Of those closures, 127 were part of the urban reinvention programme: urban sub-postmasters were paid compensation for closing their businesses in a so-called rationalisation of the post office structure in urban areas.