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Post Office Closures

Let me make some progress, as I promised to be a brief speaker and I am failing miserably so far. All this grief and all this political damage are being caused for what is actually a pretty measly amount of money that the Government are saving—just £45 million. We have to ask whether it really will be a saving when everything else has been taken into account. I provided some figures a few moments ago on how much the closure of post offices costs the local economy in urban areas—about £277,000—but that probably equates to the best part of £50,000 in VAT lost to the Treasury. If we add in other costs to individuals, such as being more isolated or the difficulty of picking up benefits, and if we also add in the cost to the community of losing its high street, and then the environmental impacts of travelling further, probably by car, to access the local post office, we have to ask what we are left with. After all, £45 million is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of Government Budgets. We also have to remember that Royal Mail awarded its own board and chief executive more than £7 million in pay and bonuses last year, and well over £5 million in bonuses and benefits alone. As one of my hon. Friends asked earlier, is there really any evidence that the closure programme will actually deliver the increased footfall to make the remaining post offices, which the Government are relying on, profitable? Where is the evidence to suggest that it will not simply cause people to change their behaviour and do business in another way? What of the overall cost to the Royal Mail Group when businesses decide to use a competitor?