This petition was submitted during the 2015-2017 parliament
Rejected petition Prevent Post Office + banks closing local branches, leaving us with no services.
For years now the Post Office and banks have got away with closing the last branch in a town leaving the working public with no access to everyday important services. The government shouldn't let last branches go so easily.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.
We can't accept this petition because part of the request is for something which is not the Government's responsibility.
The Government could not prevent banks from closing local branches because decisions on whether to close individual branches are for the banks themselves to make. You may be interested to know that the Government has worked with the banks to develop a voluntary protocol on what should be done if there are plans to close branches:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/banks-agree-protocol-on-branch-closures
In addition, bank branch closures were debated in the House of Commons on 30 June. The link to the debate can be found here: http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/backbench-business-committee/news-parliament-2015/debate-on-bank-branch-closures/
We could accept a petition about Post Office branches, because the Government wholly owns Post Office Ltd, which runs the network of post offices.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.