I WISH to reply to the letter sent by Margaret Tucker and written by spin-doctors at Labour's headquarters and published in the April 6 edition of the Okehampton Times.

There has been no hype or scaremongering in the area but the truth. In fact, the Government by its own policies, from 2003 are removing the choice where people's pension or benefits are paid. Nineteen million people currently exercise their right at a post office weekly to keep control of their own finances, avoiding the risk of bank charges and supporting the local economy.

The change will, of course, be more cost-effective to the Government as the costs of the payments will be passed on to the pensioners, the sick and disabled, in the way of bank charges.

It will cost banks money to transport 'cash' and distribute it. They have shareholders to answer to so they are not going to absorb the costs. The Post Office network is in excess of 17,000 offices. People living in rural areas will find it hard to obtain their earned benefits.

Secure! Well, the Department of Trade says 'bank fraud' is much greater than 'book fraud'. Once fraud or overpayment is detected it is quicker to stop through order books than through the banking system.

Moreover, readers may not be aware that a few weeks ago, 112,000 claimants were given duplicate payments through the banks.

An entry in Hansard estimates this overpayment was in the order of £10 million. The Post Office were fully behind the benefits payment card which did provide a modern, secure and efficient way of paying benefits, an initiative which the present Government jettisoned.

As to the modernisation of the Post Office, I am all for it. The introduction of Horizon is far overdue. Hopefully, it will arrive here in the autumn. It will speed up transactions but if the government introduce ACT that won't be a problem, as most of the post offices will have closed anyway.

Rural post offices at present obtain 40-50 per cent of their income from cashing benefits and most are just making a living.

The Government may be committed to maintaining a national network but with such a large drop in income to subpostmasters, who, after all, are only agents of the Post Office, make up most of the network, and need a viable business to live, the network will die.

If we left the status quo, there is a natural trend towards payments via ACT, it would give the Post Office time to replace the business lost from the Benefits Agency, rural communities would not be affected and everyone would have the choice of how they receive their benefit.

D Roger McLean

Okehampton Post office

vice-chairman North Devon branch

National Federation

of Subpostmasters