A Brief History of the Privatisation of Royal Mail

This is not the first time that the Royal Mail has been under threat of privatisation. During the 1990s when John Major was prime minister there was an attempt to privatise Royal Mail. The position of the former Union of Communication Workers (UCW) was to argue for greater commercial freedom. However, not the commercial freedom for others to cherry pick the profitable parts.

The Royal Mail has always been run on a cross network subsidy i.e. the cost of sending a letter from one end of the country to another was subsidised by mail that never left a postcode area and for many, many years the Royal Mail was one of the geese that laid golden eggs for the treasury by making a profit. The profits from the industry could be re invested in vital public services, which was the same as the profit from all the public industries. This isn't a posting about the need to renationalise public industries but merely to make the point that the people had the profit. Having said that though how much cheaper would council tax bills be if the profit could be re- invested into vital public services such as the emergency services, the NHS, pensions and education.

The threat that the Royal Mail is facing today is different to that faced previously.

Various Directives have been issued by the European Union that the UK Government has had to introduce into domestic law to regulate the postal industry. Coupled with the creation of Postcomm to “encourage competition they have done little more than run Royal Mail into the ground while the competition fight over what's left.

We as tax payers are also being asked to pay into the pension deficit to make it more attractive to a partnership. However, the competition has been cherry picking at the profitable parts that funded the pension scheme in the first place. In a nutshell, the taxpayers are paying the deficit to allow the competitors to take the profit that rightfully belongs to us.

This is not the privatisation of Royal Mail. It is the destruction of a public service.

Colin Elcome.
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