§ 12.9 am
§ Mr. Robert N. Wareing (Liverpool, West Derby)I have a petition from over 1,000 of my constituents who are seriously affected by the closure or threatened closure of sub-post offices in the city of Liverpool. Their petition reads as follows:
Wherefore your petitioners pray that your Honourable HouseAnd your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray etc.
- (i) will accept that the requirement in Liverpool is for a widely distributed network which is accessible and provides a basic range of services through staff who relate well to the many less able and disadvantaged members of the community, particularly the elderly and other recipients of state benefits, who use Post Offices and who are themselves part of the local community;
- (ii) will agree that the need is for a strategy to be developed which looks at the provision and distribution of Post Office facilities in relation to the real needs of the customers in the City, rather than one based purely on the pursuit of efficiency and high technology and of Government imposed financial targets;
- (iii) will request Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to draw the contents of this humble petition to the attention of the Post Office and to direct the Post Office to prepare for approval by him a revised strategy for the future of the Post Office counters network which has full regard to the issues raised in this humble petition; and
- (iv) requests the Secretary of State to direct the Post Office to cancel all closures proposed or agreed under its existing strategy.
I hope that the Department of Trade and Industry will take cognisance of what I regard as a serious petition.
§ To lie upon the Table.