PJS in Fearnan

Miscellaneous

The Royal Mail and Privatisation

The Royal Mail traces its roots back to 1516 when Henry VIII established a position of Master of the Posts.

1635 Its services were made available to the public by Charles I. Postage was paid by the recipient

The Post Office Act 1660 established the General Post Office

1784 The first mail coach, running between Bristol and London

1830 The first mail train - on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway

1840 The Uniform Penny Post allowed for a single rate to anywhere in Great Britain, with the postage prepaid by the sender via the purchase of an adhesive postage stamp (the Penny Black)

1852 The pillar box was introduced, initially in Jersey

1912 A national telephone service was inaugurated

1919 The first airmail service

1941 An airgraph service whereby letters were photographed, the film sent, and the letters printed at the destination - saving weight

1968 First and second class, and the National Giro Bank

The Post Office Act 1969 changed the GPO from a government department into a statutory corporation

1980 The telephone service separated off, BT privatised in 1984

1990 National Giro Bank sold to Alliance and Leicester BS (which demutualised in 1997, received a secret £3bn from HM Treasury to prevent insolvency in 2007 and was sold to Santander in 2008)

1994 Green Paper on Postal Reform published and subsequently dropped

Postal Services Act 2000 led to the Post Office becoming a state-owned plc (Labour Gov't). Renamed Consignia very briefly (less than a year)

2004 Second daily delivery scrapped

2005 Travelling Post Offices axed

2006 Monopoly removed, market becoming fully open to competition

2007 Sunday collections scrapped

Postal Services Act 2011 allowed for privatisation

2012 the Government assumed all historic assets and liabilities, including the Royal Mail Pension Scheme and its huge deficit. The Post Office was split off as a separate business.

‘The transfer of the £28bn of assets from the Royal Mail Pension fund to the exchequer will free it from its crippling pension debts, ensure the pensions of hard-working staff are paid and help to bring in new private sector investment. Some would have been tempted to spend the windfall. I do not propose to spend it. Instead I have used it to pay off debt.’ - George Osborne 2012 budget speech.

That deficit was estimated to be £37.5bn!

2013 IPO of 70% stake at £3.30

2015 Remaining 30% stake quietly sold off to ‘City institutions’ – total raised from the sale of Royal Mail - £3.3bn. Belying those fraudulent claims of windfalls, the privatisation of Royal Mail therefore cost the tax-payer somewhere in the region of £6bn

1999 – 2015 The Post Office Horizon Scandal, described as ‘the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history’ resulted in more than 700 postmasters being prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting due to faulty accounting software. The Post Office remains a state-owned company.

2022 Royal Mail demoted from the FTSE 100

July 2022 – July 2023 Strikes over pay

Nov 2023 Royal Mail loses its 360 year monopoly on Post Office parcels

General - RM reported a £419m loss for 2022/23, is seeking permission to drop Saturday deliveries, part of its Universal Service Obligation (USO). Closing share price 8th November 2023 - 241.5p. 13th November 2023 - fined £5.6m by Ofcom for achieving a delivery rate of just 73% next day for first class – target 93%.

How can it be that a service that has existed for over 500 years is facing an extinction? It has survived:

The reformation

The Tudors, Stuarts, the House of Orange, the Hanovers and Windsors

The Spanish armada, the Dutch and Napoleon

The English civil war

Cromwell's republicanism

The 'Glorious' revolution

Colonialism and the slave trade

The industrial revolution

Two world wars

The IT revolution

Every other significant and insignificant event in those 500 years…

And yet, after ten years of privatisation it claims that it is no longer able to fulfil the legal obligations of the USO, keeps whining at Ofcom about the burdens of such, and claims to be unable to pay its staff a fair wage – or even negotiate with its staff without all its dirty washing flapping around in the public face, leading to a complete breakdown in relations, trust and decency – and no letters being delivered!
To be fair, the rot set in with that 1969 act, which appears to have changed the focus from providing a service to making a profit.
It also laid the foundation for the privatisation excesses of the Thatcher era, albeit this particular one escaping her clutches. Nevertheless, this was a fully-functioning business that was handed over to the private sector at a knockdown price, with all its liabilities written off, that does not have to invoice any of its customers and thus has no debt-collecting costs to absorb like most other businesses, that sells millions of stamps every year that never get used (because they go to philatelists, get lost and forgotten, stuck on envelopes that subsequently do not get posted, etc – in short receiving a large income for services it will never provide), providing services to a population and density that has never been higher, and yet facing extinction. If this isn’t a damning indictment of political interference, corporate greed and incompetence then I do not know what is! And that’s the charitable explanation. More likely, I fear that this has been a wilful act of vandalism, a valuable service dismantled by corrupt politicians and their corporate paramours; making friends by means of the unrighteous riches, according to the Good Book, so that when the electorate fails, they may be received into lucrative directorships.

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