Post Offices Closure

7.48.45pm GMT Mon 24th Mar 2008

Havering and Redbridge Liberal Democrat candidate for the London Assembly Farrukh Islam has called for local Labour MP Mike Gapes to issue a public apology for misleading his constituents after voting in Parliament to close local Post Offices despite previously offering his support to keep them open.

The Government has ordered that one in five post office branches be closed. Tory and Liberal Democrats MPs tried to stop the closure programme by proposing a motion in the House of Commons demanding the Government halt their plans to shut 2,500 branches nationally including 5 across Havering and Redbridge. However, the Government won with a reduced majority and Labour MP Mike Gapes voted against the motion.

Locally the Liberal Democrats have been campaigning hard across Havering & Redbridge on this issue and have written to thousands of residents, held street stalls and online petitions to support the campaign to keep threatened local post offices open.

Farrukh Islam said: "The Labour Government is presiding over the managed decline of our post office network. Closing branches is not the way to grow a business. Moreover, they totally fail to understand the social value of our post offices to the millions of vulnerable individuals who do not have bank accounts and rely on the post offices to access their benefits. The Government also fail to understand the role of the post office as a social hub for the community, or the economic value of the post office to the surrounding economy."

Farrukh Islam added: "In particular, local MP Mike Gapes should apologize for voting with the Government in support of Post Office closures despite publicly saying he was backing the campaign to keep them open. Not only has he let his constituents down but now they cannot trust a word he says. It is a sad day for the local post office network but also local democracy."

Farrukh Islam also added:" It is height of hypocrisy that the Labour London Assembly candidate Cllr Balvinder Saund joins the campaign to save the post office yet her party and constituency MP Mike Gapes votes against the motion in Parliament on 19th March 2008."