European Union (Amendment) Bill

They are actually all tied up. The Post Office used to cross-subsidise the postal network, including the sub-post offices, and made a massive profit that was taken consistently by the last Conservative Government as a premium to the Treasury. It was a profitable organisation and was undermined by technology, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, by the policies encouraged by the then Government and by our Government. They said that it was not valuable enough to have a social institution such as the post office in a community, whether an urban one with deprivation or a rural one with sparsity problems. We turned our face away from the fundamental message that the British Government believed in people's communities, and not just the services delivered in them.