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Political Support for Post Bank
28th January 2010
Delighted CWU assistant secretary Andy Furey has welcomed
today's news that over 150 MPs have now signed up in support of
the CWU campaign for a new, fully publicly owned Post Office bank.
Early Day Motion (EDM) 344 - sponsored by Vauxhall MP Kate Hoey - argues that such a bank would "tackle financial exclusion, boost the economy by lending to small businesses, improve the sustainability of the Post Office Network and re-establish a local bank in areas affected by bank closures" and concludes with a clear call for Ministers to "urgently to support the delivery of a Post Bank."
As of this morning - Thursday 28th - Ms Hoey's Motion has been signed by 155 backbenchers of all parties and is hovering just outside if the top ten place out of a total of 745 EDMs currently before Parliament, a level of support that Andy described as "really good news".
But, he added: "There is still much work to do. We need to get as many signatories as possible from right across the political spectrum and we've got to do this before the Government consultation ends on February 24."
Last March, the CWU joined with several other organisations - the Unite union, Federation of Small Businesses, National Pensioners Convention, and independent think tanks NEF and PIRC - in setting up the Post Bank Coalition as a broad-based campaign dedicated to this aim.
And a busy initial few months of lobbying MPs at Westminster and their counterparts in the UK's regional devolved assemblies by the coalition saw the issue rise rapidly up the political agenda by last autumn, both Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Business Secretary Lord Mandelson publicly recognising the value of Post Office financial services and launching a formal government review on the issue.
The review, which is being run by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, has been seeking the opinions of all organisations connected to the Post Office and also those using its services and is set to conclude at the end of next month.
Its final report will be considered by the Government and is expected to form the basis on which future financial services are provided.
The CWU is submitting evidence to the review, both as a trade union and as part of the coalition and the union hopes that as many MPs as possible can be persuaded to support the Post Bank proposal.
"With an election expected in late spring, we need to keep this issue high on the political agenda," Andy continued.
"Post Bank must be an idea that none of our politicians can ignore."
Ask your MP to sign the EDM. You can contact them quickly and easily via this site: www.writetothem.com
View the EDM in full here: http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=39904&SESSION=903
Read more about the Post Bank campaign by visiting our campaign page: www.cwu.org/42032/people-s-bank.html
