Karen Reay: Mail sell-off will stamp out a national service

Unite, as the country’s largest union, is at the forefront of the campaign to stop the misguided sell-off of the Royal Mail which Ministers began yesterday.

As we have seen with other privatisations, such as the rail network and the accelerating pace that private healthcare companies are taking over large swathes of the NHS, what becomes the dominant issue is the profit motive, with customer service taking a back seat.

Unite represents more than 6,000 Royal Mail managers and obviously we are worried about their future; possible job cuts and reductions in their terms and conditions, and their pensions being drastically cut.

But we are not just self-serving in being concerned about the Royal Mail’s fate – we believe that there is a wider public and national interest that needs to be considered for an institution that stretches back to 1635 when Charles 1 made the embryonic postal service available to the public. It was later, in essence, nationalised by Oliver Cromwell.

Not everything in life should be defined by its monetary value and the Royal Mail is part of the nation’s fabric, but is in danger of being ripped apart. If the Royal Mail is sold off then affordable prices, rural services and free postal services for our servicemen and women will disappear. 

The aim of the campaign, which has the support of groups and individuals representing the countryside, the blind and partially sighted, the elderly and small businesses, is to persuade politicians that they must act now and guarantee that these vital services do not disappear.

Royal Mail provides a lifeline to people and businesses in rural areas. It goes where its competitors fear to tread and it charges the same to deliver a letter to a remote village in the Dales as it does to London.

Everyone understands that it costs more than the price of a stamp to deliver a letter to a rural address. The postal services regulator is working to determine the real cost for deliveries to rural areas and has also looked recently at how it can reduce the daily delivery service to addresses in the countryside.

That is what potential investors in Royal Mail will demand, but it means the countryside will be left isolated.

Until last year, stamp prices were subject to regulatory control. This meant that people and businesses were protected from excessive price rises.

But to make Royal Mail more attractive to potential investors the government removed those controls.

Overnight the price of a first class stamp rose from 46p to 60p – a whopping 30 per cent increase and the biggest since 1975.

As a private company, focused on increasing shareholder returns, Royal Mail will want more significant price increases. To make matters worse a privatised Royal Mail will eventually charge VAT on its services adding 12p to the cost of a first class stamp.

With politicians unable to exert influence over a privatised Royal Mail, just one more increase similar to the 2012 price rise will make a first class stamp 94p, in touching distance of the £1 letter.

For many small businesses, especially those in rural areas, there is often no alternative to the Royal Mail. Suffering from high energy bills and other overheads, businesses can ill afford to see the cost of the postal service shoot up. Yet this will happen if Royal Mail is sold off.

The local post office is a focal point for the life of so many small towns and villages across Yorkshire. Where pubs and other shops have disappeared, the post office has remained. But when that goes, the life of a village often diminishes.

Many small post offices have a fragile existence and rely upon Royal Mail for business to survive. Yet the 2011 Act fully separates the Post Office Counters’ network from Royal Mail.

The Government will point to a recently signed business agreement between the two. But that cannot guarantee that a new, private owner will honour that agreement . They may wish to re-negotiate its terms or move more of its business to other retail outlets. And the more cash that Royal Mail takes from post offices, the more will close.

And, finally, Royal Mail provides a freepost service for British Forces personnel. These letters and parcels from loved ones are vital for our Armed Forces, but a privately owned Royal Mail will not want to maintain this non-profit making service – and neither can it be compelled to.

For the reasons outlined, it is now time for the people of Yorkshire to take action and back the Save our Royal Mail campaign.

*Karen Reay is the Unite regional secretary for Yorkshire and Humberside.