News from Labour Matters

Conservative Post Office campaign claims fall flat

Conservative claims that they had found a winning formula which would keep threatened Post Offices open fell flat yesterday after it emerged that their figures don’t add up.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne’s plan started to unravel after Labour hit back claiming that it could lock people into benefits, and that they had overestimated the impact of allowing those with Post Office Credit Accounts (POCA) to pay their fuel bills by direct debit.

Mike O’ Brien, Labour MP and Minister of State for Pension Reform, said:
“In fact, three quarters of those who have POCA accounts already have building society or bank accounts so they may already be making savings by paying their bills by direct debit. But POCA is only available to people who are on benefits – and we want to help people off benefits and into work and we believe having a bank account is an integral part of being ready for work.

Since 1996 we have helped over 4 million households out of fuel poverty – not least by the Winter Fuel Payment which the Conservatives opposed.”

Mr O’ Brien added that, “we’re already working with the energy companies to find ways to help families meet their fuel payments. Following extensive work with the big energy companies, Business Secretary John Hutton recently announced that energy companies will increase their spend on social programmes to £150m per year by 2011 (from current spend of £56m) – an extra £225m in the next three years.”

The story failed to arouse much interest nationally, but there are signs that the Conservatives plan to use the claims to campaign locally, where there is less scrutiny.

In Birmingham the Conservatives yesterday said that their plan would save half of the post offices in the City, but local MP Khalid Mahmood told his local newspaper that “this is a gimmick, because the Post Office Card Account is not used by large numbers of people any more.”

Other news from Labour Matters

• Viewers turned off by soft-soap Cameron - 15 March 2010
• Labour releases powerful film on Conservative crime choices - 9 March 2010
• David Cameron's claim to have changed the Tories is exposed as hot air - 7 March 2010