Royal Mail and the Post Office

As the hon. Gentleman recognises, footfall is important. However, does he also recognise that the Post Office is having extreme difficulty in competing with the likes of PayPoint to win contracts? Let us take, for example, the fictitious ““A Bank Ltd””, or a fictitious utility company, which might allow people to pay their accounts at a post office. However, the price has to be cut to such a level that the postmaster or postmistress receives a greatly reduced payment for providing that service, which in effect means that the business is no longer viable for them. I suspect that is why we end up with temporary closures that become almost permanent; no one is interested.