Post Office Card Account announcement welcome

Anne Main MP has welcomed today's announcement regarding the future of the Post Office Card Account.

Anne Main, MP for St Albans, has welcomed today's announcement regarding the future of the Post Office Card Account.

Earlier today, the Government announced that the Post office is to retain the card account system which serves 4.3 million claimants.

Anne said:

"This long overdue announcement is very welcome. We were told that we had to have a competitive tender for this contract and yet now it seems that the Government can easily make a decision if it wants to. Government dithering, and the aborted tendering process, have caused a lot of anxiety about this and cost a considerable amount of money. We were also told today that companies who have become embroiled in this tendering fiasco will be entitled to an unspecified amount of compensation.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about this U-turn. For example, we have still not been given any idea of how much postmasters will receive to support this scheme, we do not know the cost of the abortive tendering process and we do not have details about the additional functionality that the Minister hinted at.

The Minister spoke weasel words when he said that sub-postmasters are 'delivering a vital social service', and that the Government shared this objective. He could offer me no concrete evidence of this when I challenged him on it. More annoyingly, my elderly constituents made exactly this argument only a few months ago, but Government efficiency savings still forced the closure of five Post Offices in my constituency, and more cuts nationally are still on the cards.""