Fife MP brands Prime Minister’s answer on Post Office closures as ‘useless’

Peter Grant, MP for Glenrothes, had raised the impact of a raft of closures on Fife towns with Boris Johnson.

Locations across Mr Grant’s constituency have been hit by the Post Office’s decision to close local outlets since 2019 - six have shut, and seven others have endured temporary closures or relocation of services.

The Glenrothes MP asked the Prime Minister “Given that the Post Office is 100% owned by his Government, what exactly does it take for him to admit that the current trading model is not working for the people who rely on its services?”

In his reply the Prime Minister suggested that the closures illustrated the challenges of running post office services in “rural” locations.

Mr Grant responded: “Most of the Post Offices I mentioned were either in the town of Glenrothes or in the major Levenmouth conurbation towns of Buckhaven, Methil and Methilhill. The Prime Minister just assumed that because we’re in Fife we all live in the middle of nowhere.”He added: “ It was a useless answer from a useless Prime Minister.

“He neither knows nor cares that whether they live in large towns or small villages people are seeing the Post Office service systematically dismantled.

“Shop owners who operate sub post offices want to provide a service for their communities but the Post Office refuses to listen to their concerns and continues to insist on them following a business model that is unworkable for many of them.”

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