Sir Edward Leigh, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Gainsborough, has suggested a radical reform to Post Office Ltd in order to hand power to local postmasters.

Speaking in response to a ministerial statement, Sir Edward described Post Office Ltd as "not fit for purpose".

"Thirty years ago, when I was a Post Office Minister, I tried to privatise this body, and it is still in a mess," the MP said. "Only last week, I had a meeting with sub-postmasters led by David Ward, one of my excellent local sub-postmasters, and they are calling for something good to come out of this scandal—namely, that we pass control directly to sub-postmasters, for instance through mutualisation."

"We have the chief executive of Post Office Ltd paying himself a salary five times more than the Prime Minister, with a bonus of £400,000 a year on top of that. We have banking remuneration to Post Office Ltd coming to £205 million, of which only 27% went to sub-postmasters. We have 11,000 sub-postmasters in a state of managed decline, earning virtually the minimum wage."

"I wrote to the Minister on 14 March, so he will have received the letter by now. I do not expect him to reply immediately to my question, but will he at least have an open mind about trying to take us forward and preserve the wonderful world of our sub-postmasters, particularly in rural England?"