Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the role of post offices in helping to maintain the community value of retail outlets in town and city centres, particularly in seaside and coastal areas.

The Government values and recognises the important role that the Post Office plays in communities across the UK. This is why we committed in our 2017 Manifesto to safeguarding the Post Office network and protect existing rural services.

In 2016 the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy commissioned independent research to understand and quantify the value that people and businesses place on the Post Office network. The study (The Social Value of the Post Office Network by YouGov and London Economics) found the estimated social value of the Post Office network to be over £4 billion. The importance of branches to local communities is further supported by Association of Convenience Stores research (The Local Shop Report 2018) that found that the Post Office is recognised as having the ‘most positive impact on a local area’ and is the ‘third most wanted service’.