Royal Mail and the Post Office

That is an important observation. However, the key thing is that, where there are Government contracts, they must be given to the Post Office. The reason is that the Post Office is the only organisation that has a rural network. PayPoint has an extensive network, but only in towns. Let us compare PayPoint with the Post Office in my constituency. PayPoint has no outlet in the whole of rural north Argyll, nor does it have an outlet on several of the inhabited islands in the constituency. By contrast, rural north Argyll has several post offices and the inhabited islands to which I referred also have post offices, so when the BBC gave the TV licence renewal contract to PayPoint, it meant that people on several of the islands in my constituency and in rural north Argyll were not able to renew their TV licence over the counter. I do not want that situation repeated with the Post Office card account. The way for the Post Office to compete with PayPoint is through the rural post office network; the Government must recognise that in specifying the contract.