Bath MP Don Foster has stressed his relief that the Government has finally reached the right decision on the Post Office Card Account, giving the contract to the Post Office. 

Don said that he had spoken to a lot of sub-postmasters during our campaign to save post offices from closure earlier this year.  The concern about this contract going elsewhere was palpable.  Sub-postmasters were saying that without the Card Account they would lose so much business that they would be forced to close.  This is important news in maintaining the number of post offices we have available in the city. 

Unfortunately Labour MPs voted against a Liberal Democrat motion to have more Government services available through the post office network. 

More than 4 million people in the UK receive pensions and benefit payments through a Post Office Card Account at their local Post Office.  At the end of 2005 there were 5,500 Post Office Card Accounts in Bath. 

The contract had previously been put out to tender, risking the loss of 3,000 Post Offices if a private firm won the contract. 

Local people have shown just how important their local post office is to them by joining our campaign earlier in the year against closures.  Don has  also received thousands of items of correspondence on the Post Office Card Account, so he is pleased that the Government have performed this u-turn. 

However, the Government should have realised the importance of post offices to communities and awarded the new contract to the network without these months of delay. 

Instead, local branches have had to deal with the uncertainty that ministerial dithering and unnecessary contracting processes has caused.