News

.... a weekly column from Michael Howard MP

24 May 2007

 

Last week Alistair Darling the Trade and Industry Secretary announced plans to close 2,500 post offices over the next 18 months. Consultation on which post offices will go will start this summer. Each consultation exercise will last about 6 weeks, though, on past form, these consultation exercises rarely result in a withdrawal of the proposal.

There is little doubt that this will be a severe blow to many local communities, urban as well as rural. People depend on their local post office for so much more than the business they actually transmit there. Very often the post office is the nerve centre of the community. And frequently the village store to which a post office is attached will be unable to survive without the custom of those who come in to use the post office.

None of this need have happened. The reason why so many post offices are losing money is because government encouraged people to take their business elsewhere. I have written before about the way in which, since 1997, so many obstacles have been placed in the path of those who, for example, wanted to continue to receive their pensions and other benefits through their local post office rather than have them paid into their bank accounts that it required an extraordinary amount of determination and persistence to achieve this. The consequences were clear and they were the subject of abundant warnings at the time.

Currently, of course, we have the consultation exercise under way on the future of the main post office in Folkestone. I have expressed my opposition to this and urge all others to do likewise. But I cannot be at all confident that we will be listened to.

On another subject, much has been said and written about the Conservative party’s attitude to grammar schools. I have no objection to academies and have supported the establishment of the new academies in Folkestone and on the Marsh. Nor have I called for a new programme of grammar schools.

But I am determined to defend our existing grammar schools including our two excellent grammar schools in Folkestone. David Cameron and David Willetts have made it clear that these schools will be safe under a future Conservative Government. I have no doubt they will continue to survive and thrive.