Post Offices

HC Deb 28 February 2002 vol 380 cc1477-8W

Mr. Evans

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many post offices there were in(a) the constituency of the Ribble Valley and Fulwood, (b) Lancashire, (c) the North West of England, (d) Wales and (e) the United Kingdom, in each year since 1997. [36420]

Mr. Alexander

Post Office Limited started to analyse post offices numbers by Government Office region in England in March 2001 when total outlets in the North West numbered 1,853. I understand from Post Office Limited that data on post office network are not held on a parliamentary constituency or county basis.

I am informed by Post Office Limited that data by country are not available before 1998. The numbers of post offices operating in Wales in the last three financial years are as follows:

Wales
		Number
End March 1998		1,513
End March 1999		1,501
End March 2000		1,470
End March 2001		1,402

I am also informed by Post Office Limited that an on-going revision of data has affected individual country totals.

In the UK, the numbers of post offices operating since 1997 are as follows:

		Number
End March 1997		19,251
End March 1998		19,008
End March 1999		18,775
End March 2000		18,393
End March 2001		17,846