Iain Wright MP pays tribute to local campaigners

Local Post Offices received a boost today as the Government awarded the contract for the POCA service to the Post Office. The news will be welcomed by local post offices who rely on the business people picking up their pensions or benefits through the Post Office Card Account brings into branches. Around 12,580 people in Hartlepool have their accounts

Welcoming the news Iain Wright MP thanked local people for campaigning with HIM on the issue:

“This is great news for the post office. I recently met with James Purnell to discuss this issue and I am delighted that the government has listened to what I have been saying on behalf of local people. I would like to thank everyone who has stood up for local post offices and made their voices known on this.”

“With the financial crisis that started with the American banks now being felt here in Britain, people are feeling worried about their finances. Post Offices are often the only providers of banking services in local areas so this vote of confidence in the post office is very welcome

The Labour Government has decided to award a new contract for the continuation of POCA directly to the Post Office. This announcement is good news for the Post Office as the card account is an important source of income and brings customers through the doors of post offices across the country. The National Federation of Sub Post Masters had said that, without POCA 3,000 Post Offices would close.

We announced in December 2006 that there would be a successor to POCA and put that product out to tender. However, in order to support a viable Post Office network the Labour Government has decided to cancel the current procurement exercise.

Labour’s Secretary of State for Work and Pensions James Purnell paid tribute to Iain Wright MP for campaigning on this issue saying:

“I applaud Iain for standing up for people in Hartlepool and HIS local post offices. I know how important post offices are to local communities and this provides real help for these local businesses and their customers in tough times.”

“This is the right decision for Hartlepool.”

It was Remembrance Sunday at the weekend. The sense of pride and honour I have to be able to lay a wreath at the town’s War Memorial is very strong, and something which I take incredibly seriously. This is the one date in the annual calendar where I would simply refuse to do anything else – come hell and high water, I want to honour the men and women from Hartlepool who have lost their lives or who even today are protecting liberty and freedom.

I think it is important that children are made aware of the sacrifices made by men and women of their country. My eldest son Benjamin is nearly 15, and there were lads not much older than he is now who have laid down their lives for their country. With Iraq and Afghanistan in the news, I believe that young people are acutely aware of what Remembrance Sunday means in a way that is not abstract, but seems very real to them. I certainly believe that the observation of the two minutes silence is growing – both on Remembrance Sunday and on the 11th November.

This was the first Remembrance Sunday that my youngest son Billy, who has just turned 4, has attended. He held my hand throughout the ceremony and walked with me up the steps of the Memorial to lay the wreath. I was proud of the fact that, as young as he is, he understood the solemnity of the occasion. He bowed at the Memorial to remember – and I think it is important that you are never too young to start remembering the sacrifices made.

I would like to attend the ceremony on the Headland at some point, something which I haven’t yet done, because the link between that part of the town and the First World War – where the first ever part of the British mainland was bombed in World War One – is very strong. I would imagine that it is a very moving and poignant ceremony.

Hartlepool has a close and historic link with the events of the First and Second World Wars. Not only was there the Bombardment, but the first soldier to be killed on British soil in the First World War was in Hartlepool, as was the first Civil Defence worker that was killed in the Second World War. Hartlepool people sacrificed a lot in those world wars.

The ceremony which takes place on the Saturday morning in the military area within Stranton Cemetery, organised by the Royal Artillery Association, grows in importance with each passing year. This year the rain had been extremely heavy, but during the ceremony the sun began to shine in a brilliant and striking way; the light through the trees close to the graves made the place look both beautiful and peaceful.

This year is the 90th anniversary of the ending of the First World War, and the point from which we started to commemorate the horrors of war. In some respects, the First World War doesn’t seem too long ago. It might still be possible for families to remember friends and loved ones – in my own family, for example, I know of one of my Nana Bertha’s brothers – John – who went down on his ship during a battle in the First World War. John was aged 19.

This weekend I had a look at the old copies of the Northern Daily Mail held at Hartlepool Central Library (by the way, if you need any assistance, I have never known such great customer service as I received from the staff upstairs in the Reference Library. They were great).

Two things struck me as I was looking at the editions from November 1918. First, quite by chance, the week that peace was declared, a ‘thank the guns week’ campaign arrived in West Hartlepool. This was a national campaign where you could fund the war effort and help sponsor a gun. In that week, the last of the War, the people of West Hartlepool provided £1,617,286. That’s £25 from every man, woman and child in the town at that time – an astonishing amount in those days. The sense of collective sacrifice was very strong and I wondered whether this could be achieved in the town again – I rather suspect that it could.

The second thing that was striking was seeing the list of young men who had died in the last days of the War and afterwards, not through a war injury as such, but by influenza. I saw more deaths in the paper from flu than from bullets. This showed the appalling conditions that those men fought in – the sense of constant cold and damp. It wasn’t just the fear of conflict, but the horrific, hellish conditions, which these brave men had to endure. These two things – the collective spirit and the bravery amidst horrific conditions – are enduring and should never be forgotten. We remain eternally humble and grateful.