Royal Mail sell-off details to be announced
You read the surmise here first. With the sell off of Royal Mail it will get more expensive for remote places to use the postal system. This article tells us that a nigh 500 year old institution which has supported us all irrespective of our spatial challenges is to be sold off.
The government will this week formally announce its plan to sell off the Royal Mail in the most contentious privatisation since British Rail two decades ago.
Vince Cable, the business secretary, will make a statement to the House of Commons formally kickstarting the sale of the 497-year-old postal service.
Cable’s statement – which is expected on Wednesday but could be delayed until next week – will set out details of the sale, expected to come via a £2-3bn flotation on the London Stock Exchange this autumn.
The statement will set out the terms under which 10% of the shares will be granted to postal workers. The public will also be encouraged to buy shares in an advertising blitz along the lines of the “Tell Sid” campaign that encouraged the £9bn sale of British Gas in 1986.
The formal announcement of the sale to MPs in parliament comes amid mounting outcry from postal workers who have taken to an open top bus to protest against the “great British flog-off”.
Billy Hayes, general secretary of the CWU, which represents more than 100,000 postal workers, warned the government: “We aren’t going to let Royal Mail be sold. We are going to fight every step of the way. A strike is certain.”
Hayes warned the government that the union was already planning industrial action that could include rolling strikes this autumn and members would formally meet to vote on strike action on 31 July.