New minister greeted by letter from GCA and partners demanding action to save Royal Mail
The GCA has welcomed Labour’s new business secretary with a demand from a coalition of organisations to save the UK’s postal service.
This is the first time the GCA has forged links with so many organisations, but the association felt a collective loud voice is needed to protect something so crucial to the greetings industry.
In an open letter to new business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, mp for Stalybridge and Hyde, the GCA, British Independent Retailers’ Association, Booksellers’ Association, National Federation Of SubPostmasters, Voice Of The Postmaster and Bookshop.org have urged him to keep the postal service national, reliable and affordable.
The coalition of membership organisations and businesses represents over 10,000 small and medium-sized UK businesses and serves millions of consumers across the country, and it has asked the government to reverse the slide in Royal Mail’s performance in the letter which was sent on Friday, 26 July, with the details released to the media this week which has already picked up on the plight.
The new administration has split the postal portfolio, appointing Gareth Thomas, mp for Harrow West, to cover post offices, with Justin Madders, mp for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough, looking after Royal Mail, and both report to Jonathan as secretary of state for business and trade, and president of the Board Of Trade.
As the business looks set to be sold to the EP Group owned by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretínsky, the group wants the government to insist it meets existing performance targets before contemplating any changes to the legally-binding universal service obligation (uso) that holds the postal service to account.
GCA ceo Amanda Fergusson said: “Consumers and small businesses are united by a desire to see a postal service that gets back to its best. The businesses and consumers our respective organisations represent are now looking to the new administration to recognise the importance of Royal Mail, post offices and the associated services that communities depend on.
“Whoever owns it, we need lock-tight, long-term undertakings from Royal Mail on affordability and reliability.”
Fearing a 21st century version of the Beeching Axe that decimated the British rail network in the 1960s, Amanda said the greeting card industry association and its coalition partners have been campaigning to prevent Royal Mail’s postal service suffering similar swingeing cuts with second-class deliveries chopped back to just three days a week, and potential runaway prices for first-class mail.
The incoming government and department of business have significant pending decisions as Royal Mail’s parent company IDS has accepted a £3.6billion takeover bid from EP – although the deal for the 508-year-old business has yet to be approved by the government.
EP has said it will support the USO for five years but then will explore ways to put it on a sustainable footing, and the government must also approve any watering down of the USO.
The previous Tory administration had said it was committed to the obligation to deliver letters and parcels anywhere in the country for the same price six days a week following industry regulator Ofcom’s Future Of The Universal Postal Service consultation earlier this year which mooted the possible reforms, including cutting the second class service and hiking first class prices for next-day deliveries.
Calum Greenhow, ceo of The National Federation Of SubPostmasters, said: “Postmasters are consumer facing in relation to the USO and, as such, would be concerned if Royal Mail were allowed to diminish service levels.
Above: Everything needs to be done to ensure the British public has an affordable and reliable postal service
“We hear first hand from our customers their concerns about delays to their mail or the inflation busting price rises – we call for more to be done to ensure Royal Mail service levels improve and that costs for first and second class mail remain within inflation boundaries.”
He said: “They’re changing their business model to meet consumer demand by developing the online business, not to mention the many thousands of businesses that sell cards.
“With this in mind we would expect any change of ownership of Royal Mail to be very closely scrutinised and only allowed to go ahead if there are cast-iron commitments from the purchaser to retain and improve what we already have.”
