§ John BarrettTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many post offices there were in(a) the Edinburgh, West parliamentary constituency, (b) the City of Edinburgh local authority area and (c) Scotland, in each year since 1992. [87166]
§ Mr. TimmsI am informed by Post Office Ltd. that historic data in the forms requested are not available as the company does not require these data for operational reasons.
However, in 1999, the Post Office undertook a special exercise to determine the number of post offices in each parliamentary constituency in response to the then hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington on 29 November 1999, Official Report, column 22W. I further understand from Post Office Ltd. that it compiled a list of post offices by parliamentary constituency as of 20 April 2002 showing their classification as urban or rural offices. At the time this list was compiled, 21 post offices were listed for Edinburgh West constituency. A copy of the full list is held in the Libraries of the House.
Post Office Ltd. further informs me that data by country before 1998 is not available. However the numbers of post offices operating in Scotland over the last five financial years are as follows:
End March Number operating 1998 2,051 1999 2,026 2000 1,999 2001 1,936 2002 1,907 I am also informed by Post Office Ltd. that revision of data has affected individual country totals.