At Commons question time, after the presentation in Downing Street of a large protest petition over post office closures and plans to switch benefit payments to bank accounts, Mr Blair said his pledge applied to weekly as well as monthly benefit payments. He insisted the Post Office must "face up to the challenges of modernisation" and referred to plans to install 3,000 cashpoints at rural offices.
The Tory leader William Hague, however, dismissed his comments as "meaningless reassurances" and called on ministers to think again by opting instead for an earlier Conservative scheme of benefit swipe cards. "We had a policy to save post offices, you have a policy to close post offices," said Mr Hague, during rowdy exchanges.
Mr Blair retorted that the Conservatives had been responsible for closing 300 post offices and still planned to privatise the service. Modernisation would bring welfare savings of £600m a year, he said, and the government fully intended to sit down with sub-postmasters and discuss the future of the service.
Commenting on speculation that Govan shipyard would lose out on a £300m order for Royal Navy ferries, Mr Blair said: "I would stress that no decision has been taken at all. I would stress also that the UK warship orders are coming up, where Scotland can expect to benefit."
Mr Hague paid tribute to the Royal Ulster Constabulary and congratulated them on the award of the George Cross today. He said many people would find it to hard to understand why the constabulary's name was going to change, particularly given the IRA's failure to decommission. Mr Blair stressed that it was vital to attract officers from all sections of the Northern Irish community. The change of name was one of a number of steps recommended by the Patten report. Implementing that report was, he said, the "right way forward".
