RMs 225m profit will raise debate over private stake

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales ... -22749833/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ROYAL MAIL made a profit of £225m in the nine months to Christmas, with all its businesses in the black for the first time in 20 years, it announced yesterday.

The figures will re-open the debate over the wisdom of government plans to sell off a stake in the group to the private sector.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is keen for the part-privatisation to go ahead, despite opposition from some Labour MPs. Dutch postal firm TNT has already shown an interest in acquiring a minority stake in Royal Mail.

The company’s operating profit of £225m compares with £162m for the whole of 2007-08. It said it was on track for an annual profit of nearly double the level it achieved in the last financial year.

Adam Crozier, chief executive of Royal Mail group, re-stated his support for the Mandelson proposal last night.

He said: “There will be a need... to access further investment in a timely and flexible way, as we compete increasingly with electronic communications as well as with other postal operators, while at the same time dealing with the effects of the current economic recession.

“We have therefore welcomed the Government’s intention to raise further funding through the sale of a minority stake in Royal Mail, which will also allow us to retain and bring in people down through the business with the right skills and experience in operational change we need for the next stage of our transformation.”

The company said mail volumes were expected to fall by about 7% in the UK over the next year, adding that the one price goes anywhere universal delivery service remained loss-making and “under threat”.

But for the first time in almost 20 years, the letters business, post office network, Parcelforce and the group’s European parcels business were all in profit.

Elfyn Llwyd, Plaid Cymru’s leader at Westminster, said: “The Government’s argument was that it was not possible for Royal Mail to survive without transferring parts of it to the private sector. This completely undermines that whole argument.

“Despite attempts to make things appear gloomy for the company, the future actually looks bright. We’re not saying that there doesn’t need to be change, but that change can happen without privatisation.”

A total of 22 MPs have signed a Commons motion tabled by independent MP for Blaenau Gwent, Dai Davies, calling for the Royal Mail to remain in public hands.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Not sure what EDM the article is on about as found these ones by Dai Davis:

Early Day Motion
EDM 536

NATIONALISATION OF BANKS AND ALTERNATIVE FINANCIAL PROVISION
21.01.2009


Davies, Dai

That this House believes that the Government should implement in full the 1983 manifesto policy put forward by the then Leader of the Labour Party, the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, now Blaenau Gwent constituency, that the banks should be nationalised; further believes that the future of banking in Britain should include more mutual societies, mortgage providers and financial institutions that give a priority to ethical aims in their management and investment activities; and calls for greater use to be made of the facility available in the national Post Office network and credit unions to provide more flexible and sustainable financing arrangements at this time of widespread loss of confidence in the main, large, existing financial institutions due to their incompetent and reckless past financial mismanagement.

- Which has only be signed by him so far

EDM 502

REGIONAL AND LOCAL MEDIA
19.01.2009


Davies, Dai

That this House views with growing alarm the flood of newspapers and reporting jobs being lost all over Britain as a result of cut-backs by the Trinity Mirror publishing group; records the fact that 44 newspapers have been cut in the past 12 months alone; understands that a further £20 million worth of cutbacks in 2009 will have a further severe effect on much-needed reporting in communities across Britain; is deeply worried about the way these cutbacks are impacting on the regional and local coverage of politics, cultural, communal and other issues; cannot stress strongly enough that a healthy democracy needs a healthy media which holds political institutions and politicians to account and questions everything they do and that having a top-rate, vigorous, questioning media is vital to communities and people right across Britain; and urges the Government to take all steps it can to ensure that a much-needed thriving regional and local media industry is maintained and strengthened.

This has been signed by 22 but has nothing to do with keeping RM in public hands.

[Big Daz]

EDM 364 PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF ROYAL MAIL 18.12.2008 Davies, Dai

That this House believes that Royal Mail is an integral part of the postal network and a service that must remain in public ownership; considers that, at a time when the Government has spent huge amounts of public money nationalising certain banks, it is inconceivable that Ministers are now considering selling off another part of the British industrial `Crown Jewels'; notes the poor track record of foreign companies taking over former public services including some rail, water and power production and distribution companies; further notes with alacrity the very damaging recent failures of the private American company ETS in the shambles it made of the marking of SATS test examinations; further notes that when the hon. Member for Dundee West resigned his post as parliamentary private secretary to the Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs on 17 December 2008, following the Ministerial Statements made to Parliament on the part-privatisation of the postal service, he asserted it `beggars belief' that the private Dutch company TNT could be brought in to advise Royal Mail on its operations; further believes that there is a need to reform the postal service but that this should start at the top and not at the sharp end; agrees with the comment by the Communications Workers' Union General Secretary, Billy Hayes, that `the majority of decent politicians and the general public are fed up with privatisation'; and calls on the Government to reverse its decision to implement the privatisation proposals of the Hooper Review of postal services.

[Caveman]

Great - they've f*****d up the banks, now they're after the money we make.