Prime minister says appeal to Royal Mail, not us

The Prime Minister has sought to shift responsibility for the threat of closure facing post offices.

Gordon Brown insists the decisions about which branches to close are being made by the Post Office, not the Government.He said that if people had a strong case over the planned closure of their local branch they could appeal, with cases going to Royal Mail chairman Allan Leighton if necessary.

Devon will find out in late May which post offices will be closed as part of a government overhaul of the network.

More than one in six branches in the area could go, among the 2,500 to be shut across the country.

Mr Brown said four million fewer people a week were using post offices than two years ago, and the network was losing GBP 3.5m a week.

“To keep 11,500 post offices going, the changes are being made now,” he said. “These decisions are not being made by us – the Government – but by the Post Office.

“They have come to us, and got more money from us, to enable them to carry out a programme that will cost us GBP 1.7bn over the next few years.

“Thousands of post offices remain in existence as a result of the help that we are giving.”

During a parliamentary debate over the closures many Labour MPs and Ministers were accused of hypocrisy for opposing closure of individual branches but backing the overall programme.

Mr Brown said complaints against specific closures should be aimed at Post Office bosses, not government Ministers.

He said: “It’s the Post Office that’s prepared to reconsider the individual closure decisions under the appeal network, and the appeal can go finally to Allan Leighton.”