Post Office

Richard Burden Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The fact that we have a network with such a fantastic reach into communities up and down the country means that it is ideally placed for a range of different commercial contracts and potential partnerships, such as the one that he mentions with National Express.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

At a time when so many of our constituents face crippling debts, I think the Minister might agree that local post offices should be able to play a bigger role in providing alternatives to loan sharks. It has been argued that credit unions could be co-located with local post offices, but all too often that does not stack up financially for the post office or the credit union. What does she feel she can do to bring them together and remove those barriers?

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, not just about the suitability of post offices for such ventures but about the need for such projects in our communities. As he will be aware, the Government are investing £38 million to support credit unions to modernise and to ensure that they can be accessible to people in communities. There might be ways in which that can be used to create collaboration with the Post Office in communities where that makes sense.