Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to prevent the closure of local post offices.

Government is committed to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the Post Office network and has provided over £2.5 billion in funding to support the Post Office network over the past decade and is providing a further £628 million for the Post Office between 2022 and 2025.

The Post Office network is not in decline. As CEO Nick Read confirmed recently, the network is as large as it has been for about five years with around 11,700 branches. Government continues to monitor Post Office's network numbers and performance, and Post Office publishes an annual network report.