21st
December 2006
SNP
Have no Answers to Post Office Questions – McNeil
The SNP today couldn’t answer any of
the questions about their plans for the Post Office, put to them by Labour’s
Duncan McNeil.
They refused to rule out
price rises, redundancies and Post Office closures in an independent Scotland.
Speaking in a debate on Post
Offices in the Scottish Parliament today, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Mr
McNeil, said:
“Scotland has a
disproportionately high share of the UK’s Post Offices – 11.7% of the UK
network for 8.6% of the population. We
have 14% of the rural network and 9% of urban Post Offices.
But, because we’re part of a UK-wide system, the costs of funding these
Post Offices can currently be spread across the whole UK.
Not so with independence.
“By how much, the SNP needs
to tell us, would the cost of a stamp rise to pay for the Scottish Post Offices
which the Union currently subsidises? How
many postal workers would they need to sack?
Which Post Offices would they end up closing anyway?
“Why should we have to pay
international postage rates to send, say, Christmas cards to friends and family
abroad in England?
“And what about the cost to
business? It currently costs you
20% more to send post from Northern Ireland to the Republic.
This price hike would be passed on to Scottish businesses.
And if these companies’ main customer base in is in England, Wales or
Northern Ireland, why would they not simply relocate there?
“How long would it take to
deliver a letter from, say, Stornoway to Sussex? How would the economies of scale we would lose be paid
for?”
ENDS
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