Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the implications for his policies are of the call by the Association of Convenience Stores for the Government to review the costs, income and viability of rural post offices on its Rural Shop Report 2017, published in January 2017.

The Government entrusts the Post Office’s management to keep the health of the network under review in order to meet the commitment we have set to maintain the network at over 11,500 branches. The commercial agreements it has with subpostmasters, rural and urban, covering costs and revenue form a key part of ensuring the health of the network. While these arrangements are commercially sensitive between both parties the evidence of their success is in the fact that that the network is at its most stable in decades.