Ministers have defended controversial plans to close dozens of post offices across Sussex and said without Government cash four times as many would have to close.

Post Office Minister Pat McFadden told MPs that the "difficult" decisions being taken over closures were a result of "lifestyle changes" which led to fewer people using their local branches.

He said: "This process is not easy. I do understand any decision involving post office closures will not be a popular one, and will give rise to significant concern in local communities."

Mr McFadden said more people were using direct debit and the internet to pay bills - with more than one million people renewing their tax disc online this month - many outside post office opening hours.

He said: "Do we really believe any Government is going to reverse the trend of putting services online where people can access them 24 hours a day and go back to giro cheques with the cost and increase risk of fraud?"

He told MPs 800 post offices across the country had fewer than 16 customers per week, with each transaction costing the taxpayer £17. It cost the Government one penny to pay a pension into a bank account, 80p to do it through a Post Office Card Account and £1.80 through a Giro cheque.

Defending the closure programme, Mr McFadden said it was not the Government but the Post Office which decided the future of individual branches.

He told MPs more than £1.7 billion was being ploughed into the network until 2011, as well as an annual subsidy of £150 million to keep open branches that would otherwise have been unsustainable.

The minister said he wanted people to be given more reasons to use their post office, including access to local services.

Earlier this month The Argus revealed that 49 post offices in Sussex faced the axe under the county's first wave of closures.

Last week Mr McFadden agreed to meet Celia Barlow, Labour MP for Hove, to discuss concerns about the proposed closure of two branches in her constituency.

Ms Barlow told the Commons that the Trafalgar Road branch in Portslade and the Richardson Road office in Hove were the centre of "tight-knit, old and established shopping areas".

She warned their closure could have an "extremely negative effect" on local businesses.

  • Click here for a full list of the services that are closing.

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