MPs have questioned proposals to close 2,500 Post Offices in England and Wales, calling for greater government involvement to boost the network. The Trade and Industry Select Committee have said that the government should not just “manage the decline” of the local post office, but should be actively involved in encouraging competitiveness. The MPs also called on Post Office management to show “imagination and entrepreneurial flair in developing new areas of business”, and criticised the lack of a coherent plan to make post offices self-sustaining and not reliant on subsidies.
Coming the day after the postal workers’ union announced that a vote had approved strike action, the comments are interesting, and should give those of us who rely on Royal Mail to run our business some comfort that the government has not yet entirely washed its hands of the whole sorry mess.
