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ITN
Post office bill passed
Post office bill passed
A backbench rebellion has failed to stop the Government passing a bill that will close up to 2,500 sub-post offices.In an embarrassment for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Labour MPs backed a Tory motion to stop the closures.The motion was defeated by 288 votes to 268, with the Government's majority of 67 slashed to just 20.Labour MPs had been urged to rebel by shadow business secretary Alan Duncan, who said 90 of them, including seven Cabinet ministers, had campaigned against proposed closures in their own constituencies.But Mr Brown told MPs the cutbacks are necessary as the Post Office is losing £500,000 a day.Mr Duncan said the closure programme was being "rammed" through Parliament and "community is being pitted against community" in a bid to keep their branch.The fact that so many Cabinet ministers were campaigning to save their local branches "made a mockery" of the principle of collective responsibility, he added.He called on Business Secretary John Hutton to suspend the closure programme "to give much hope to many hard-working postmasters whose enterprise, hard work and service to their community deserves better than they are getting from the Government".Labour's Geraldine Smith, who worked for the Post Office for 18 years, said she would support the Conservative motion, adding: "I think it's wrong that viable post offices are being closed and that's clearly what is happening in some cases."We should take a step back and have a re-think on this."Mr Hutton condemned the opposition motion as a "cocktail of false hopes, flawed economics and opportunism of the highest order".© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.
ITN | March 19, 2008
