Chuka Umunna calls on the government to save our post offices
In The Guardian letter’s page today Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, and others call on the government to save our post offices. The signatories of the letter say that the Post Office should be grown into a national banking system to underpin economic resilience, promote financial inclusion and to allow people to invest and save with confidence and security. The text of and signatories to the letter are below.
As your excellent leader (October 2) pointed out, the government has a real opportunity in the current financial turmoil to strengthen the Post Office as a trusted national institution which can offer an established and viable home for savings, a local banking system that can provide untainted and impartial information and advice, and an environmentally sound network of community centres which can be strengthened and made ready for a digital future.
We call on the government to halt immediately the closure programme targeting 2,500 local post offices and abandon plans to break up Royal Mail. Instead, it should build it up as both financially viable and as a cohesive social and economic institution.
We believe that the Post Office must be grown into a national banking system to underpin economic resilience, promote financial inclusion and to allow people to invest and save with confidence and security. Royal Mail must be retained as a powerful national network and not cherry-picked by competitors and run down by a government and regulator which has put too much faith in the deregulated market.
Financially and economically, the post office network aids the dynamic small and medium businesses that, pound for pound, create more jobs than big business. With the impact of the financial crisis yet to play out in full, the support that post offices provide will be critical.
Environmentally it makes no sense to run down a national network at a time when energy costs are soaring and climate change is an even greater threat than financial instability.
Socially, local post offices underpin the social fabric. They are a cohesive community resource and a lifeline for the poor, the old, young families and local businesses. The government must rethink its neglect of this great national institution and make it one of the cornerstones of a more stable, trusted and solid financial framework. The moment demands that a modern high-quality postal service is built – not pulled apart.
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC
Cllr Jon Collins, leader, City of Nottingham council
Mark Serwotka, general secretary, PCS
Stewart Wallis, executive director, New Economics Foundation
John Wright, chairman, Federation of Small Businesses
Nicky Gavron AM, London assembly member
David Martin MEP
Doug Naysmith MP
Chuka Umunna, Labour PPC, Streatham
Ann Pettifor, economist
Howard Reed, economist
Roger Levett
Professor Ruth Lister
Neal Lawson, Chair, Compass
Gavin Hayes, General secretary, Compass
