High Peak Liberal Democrats

Commenting on the announcement today [24 January] by Liberal Democrat Business Minister, Ed Davey of a ten-year deal between Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd, Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, Lorely Burt said:

"This is very welcome news for both the Post Office and Royal Mail and demonstrates our commitment to ensure a sustainable future for both.

"Post Offices are a vital part of our communities and are the lynchpin of our towns and villages. More than 20m people visit a Post Office every week to send letters to loved ones, to manage their finances or to renew passports for holidays and hundreds of thousands of pensioners rely on them every day for their pensions.

"Labour left Royal Mail in a terrible mess and it is Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government who have stopped closures and put Royal Mail and the Post Office on a secure footing. Our plans mean that we will never see the kind of planned closures that devastated local communities under the previous Government.

"Labour said our plans would lead to more closures as the Royal Mail moved away from using the Post Office network. Today's announcement proves that they were, once again, wrong."

1. Under the Labour Government, Post Office numbers fell by more than 7100, or 38%. In March 2010, there were only 11,905 post offices in theUK.