People Must Be Free To Choose Alternative To Post Office Card Account - Alexander

5.17.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 16th Oct 2006

Liberal Democrat Work and Pensions Spokesperson, Danny Alexander MP

Liberal Democrat Work and Pensions Spokesperson, Danny Alexander MP, has demanded that people are not forced to switch from their Post Office card accounts after 2010, following the Government's announcement that it wants a 'multiple choice' replacement for the card account.

Mr Alexander said:

"While it is welcome that ministers have finally woken up to the need to replace the card account with a Post Office based alternative, the idea of having so many options raises many more questions.

"Most importantly, it is not at all clear that people will be free to choose to continue with their card account after 2010 without facing a further barrage of pressure from the Government to change. The Government must give more detail about the range of options and assurances about how free people will be to choose.

"The Government must provide the investment to ensure that there is still a Post Office network across the country in 2010."

ENDS

Notes to Editors

The exchange at today's DWP questions was as follows:

Danny Alexander (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey): What progress has been made in developing a replacement for the Post Office Card Account for the payment of benefits after 2010.

James Plaskitt, Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for work and Pensions: Instead of a single replacement for the Post Office Card Account, there will be a range of alternative banking products. Post Office Ltd. has already launched one new product and I think there will be other likely to be launched in the future. The objective remains to migrate customers onto accounts which will do more than Post Office Card Accounts. But for those who, for whatever reasons, cannot do that, there will be a new government supported product. Discussions are already taking place with a view to tendering for that product.

Danny Alexander: I'm grateful for that answer and I'm sure DTI Ministers will be grateful for it too, given their frustration at DWPs resistance on this issue expressed in today's Financial Times. But can he assure the House that whatever product, or products, will follow the Post Office Card Account, that procedures will be in place for people to be automatically migrated to the new products, so that people will not face government induced hurdles to collecting their benefits and pensions at their post office when the change takes place.

James Plaskitt: Well of course we're going to make the migration as smooth as possible; and indeed the migration process is the joint responsibility of ourselves and the post office, as he knows from having seen the preamble to the contract for the Post Office Card Accounts. No we've done some piloting on the migration and I've placed the results of that in the library; and I can tell him that the Post Office itself will begin a migration exercise shortly and it will be a very smooth exercise, and just to wait and see.