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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what support his Department provides for communities in which Post Offices require relocation.

The provision and location of Post Offices is the operational responsibility of Post Office Limited.

Any proposal by Post Office Limited to relocate a post office within a community includes a six week local consultation conducted by the Post Office to let the community know what is happening and seek feedback from interested customers and stakeholders within the community. The Post Office carefully considers all feedback received during the consultation process before making a final decision on whether to relocate.

The Government recognises the importance of post offices to communities and will have invested £2 billion in the Post Office during the period 2010 to 2018 to maintain the network and invest in transformation of the business which includes money to help relocate post offices to more sustainable locations in their communities. This investment has led to the highest level of network stability in decades.