Letter: Sale of Royal Mail would seal fate of daily delivery

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Letter: Sale of Royal Mail would seal fate of daily service

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THE Government's plans to sell off part of Royal Mail to a European company – with TNT of Holland as front runners – make no economic or commercial sense and pose a real threat to the six-days-a-week, one-price-goes-anywhere universal service to Britain's 28 million residential and business addresses, which has been the cornerstone of our postal service since the Penny Post was set up in 1840.

Assurances given by the Government that privatisation would not result in a share decline in postal services need to be measured against the fact that only last year the Labour Party repeated its commitment to "Keep Royal Mail wholly publicly owned and publicly accountable" – and against the Post Office closure programme.

In Holland, there are only two deliveries per week to many parts of the country and postage prices are higher than that in Britain.

Lord Mandelson, the only Labour minister seemingly willing to speak in favour of the Government sell-off plans claims that "Royal Mail must modernise to survive and succeed in the future... and this can only be done with capital and expertise from a European competitor".

But Royal Mail has recently announced nine-month profits of £255 million. Equally, more than £600 million of a £ 1.2 billion Government loan to Royal Mail given in 2007 for modernisation of the sorting office network remains unspent. The fact is, there is no need for a competitor or any other private capital.

Royal Mail, like most other companies and industries in our country faces testing times. The answer is not, however, to sell out to foreign competitors, who will then 'cherry pick' the most profitable sides of the Royal Mail Group without considering the impact of this on the long standing and well understood cross-funding needed for the maintenance of non-profitable sectors of this public body.

DARREN GLEBOCKI Communication Workers' Union Nottingham & District Branch