Yahoo News Ex-minister asks whether it is 'appropriate' that post offices are now based in Bargain Booze off licences
A former minister has raised concerns in the House of Commons about whether it is “appropriate” for Post Office branches to be based in a chain of budget off licences.
Tim Loughton, a former Education minister, and Iain Duncan Smith, a former Work and Pensions secretary, criticised the Government for not doing more to conserve the 11,500 strong network.
A money saving plan to move sub-post offices into shops meant that three out of four branches – 8,000 out of 11,500 outlets – were now in bigger convenience stores like WH Smith.
However Mr Loughton expressed concern that “the other firms that have taken post offices on include a chain called Bargain Booze, an off licence with some 30 post offices”.
Speaking in a House of Commons debate, he added: “Members of Parliament may have concerns about how appropriate that is.”
Mr Loughton pointed out that, with 705 post offices for sale and the threat of increased business rates, there were “longer-term questions about the viability and sustainability of the new arrangements”.
Speaking afterwards, Mr Duncan Smith said “post offices are part of the chain of integral elements in a high street which, bit by bit by bit, are being removed.
“The post office is an integral element because it brings people into the community, particularly elderly people who do their shopping there. The high street will therefore suffer as a result of the closures.”
Margot James, a small business minister, defended the changes and said the size of the network had been “kept absolutely stable” after large-scale closures under the last Labour Government.
She said that many people had experienced the benefits of the changes with more than 4,300 branches open on Sundays.
