Steve Webb gets ministerial post

Steve Webb has become Minister of State in the Department for Work and Pensions.

Congratulations, Steve!

An excellent appointment - there aren't many people who know more about pensions than Steve does.

Full list of ministers from the Guardian here

Steve Webb writes about the coalition

Steve has written a detailed piece on his blog on the logic that led to the Con - Lib Dem coalition government, and what could have happened if other alternatives had been tried.

Read Steve's blog post in full here: A real rollercoaster

Station Road Post Office to close

The Post Office have announced the results of their "consultation" about closing 29 Post Offices in the Greater Bristol area and, surprise, surprise, all 29 are to close. This includes the Post Office in the Tesco Express Store in Station Road, Yate. Local people will have to join the already long queues at Yate Post Office.

Steve Webb told the Gazette, "The depressing thing about the whole consultation process was that we always knew that if we got the post office to change their mind about one of the offices on their list they would simply substitute another one.

"As soon as the government decided that 2,500 offices had to go, the die was cast."

See the Evening Post for a full list of closures.

MP launches fight against PO closures

Steve Webb MP has launched a campaign against PO closures.

Residents of Nibley and the Stover Road area of Yate may be particularly concerned about plans to close the Post Office in the Tesco Express store in Station Road. Yate is a growing town and if this post office closes people will have to use the Crown post office in Yate shopping centre which already has long queues at peak times.

To find out what you can do to help, go to the Save our Post Offices website.

Steve Webb MP welcomes withdrawal of composting application

Local MP Steve Webb has welcomed the decision by SITA to withdraw their application for a giant composting plant in the Green Belt between Pucklechurch and Westerleigh. You can read more on his website.

Women's pensions - Steve Webb's campaign gets pension justice

Steve Webb MP has been campaigning to get proper state pension payments for women whose computer records had been lost, so that they weren't receiving credit for periods when they were at home raising children.

Steve was contacted by more than a thousand women who have been affected. Steve and his team identified a dozen key cases and took them to the Department of Work and Pensions, who agreed that they had lost out. One woman has received more than £10,000 in back pension and interest.

The Government has now agreed to trawl through millions of National Insurance Contribution records to identify the people affected - the back payments may add up to tens of millions of pounds.

For the full details, see Steve Webb's blog.