Prime Minister's Press Conference - February 2009

[britwrit]

This is from the press conference held by Gordon Brown on Wednesday. At the end, he gets asked about the Royal Mail:

"Question:

Prime Minister do you see any circumstances where you wouldn’t now go ahead with the sell-off of part of the Royal Mail, and if you are going ahead with it how do you envisage convincing about 110 of your own MPs that it is a good thing? They seem implacably opposed to it.

Prime Minister:

Well we issued the report on the future of the Royal Mail a few weeks ago, we have a period of consultation on it. Look the issue here is this, that the Royal Mail needs new investment, at the same time the Royal Mail has problems, particularly with its own pension fund and it is difficult to imagine a situation where the Royal Mail on its own can deal with its pensions problems and at the same time make the necessary investment for the future. So if the government is going to step in it has got to be under conditions that are acceptable to us, and that is what the whole consultation is about."


Full transcript here: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page18332