Local MP, Gordon Prentice, has vowed to use the Royal Mail for all mail shots in his Pendle constituency despite embarrassing news that letters from him were sent out by the national Labour Party via TNT, a rival operator.

Speaking from Westminster, the MP said: “I was not consulted about the national Labour Party’s decision to send mail via TNT and I am absolutely livid.”

“The Royal Mail is being undermined by a fetish for “market solutions”.”

“I have made it crystal clear I shall not be voting with the Government to carve up the Royal Mail. It is a national institution that should not be carelessly undermined.”

Note to Editors: The letter below has gone to the Letters Editor,  Leader Times

Dear Sir

The Labour Party nationally used TNT to deliver some mail shots in Pendle. This was without my prior knowledge or consent. (letters 24 April. One law for us?)

I have told the Labour Party General Secretary, Ray Collins, this was an acute embarrassment, opening me up to charges of hypocrisy. I have told Ray I will no longer use the national Labour Party for mailings.

In its drive to open up the post to competition, the Government has put the Royal Mail at a deliberate disadvantage, forcing it to subsidise competitors who part-sort the mail and then trunk it to the Royal Mail for final sorting and delivery – the expensive bit.

The Chief Executive of Royal Mail, Adam Crozier, says he loses 2p per item. Or £100 million for the five billion items that go through the system.

The private sector cannot build its own postal network. It would be cripplingly expensive. The Royal Mail collects from 115,000 post boxes, 11,500 Post Offices and delivers daily to 28.4 million addresses. It employs 167,000 people, has 69 mail centres, 1,400 delivery offices, 31,000 vehicles, two trains and 42 flights a day.Instead, the private sector is allowed to access the network on preferential terms.

If the Royal Mail cuts its prices to its retail customers then the charges made to competitors such as TNT for accessing the postal network must be reduced by a similar proportion.

These arrangements allow competitors always to undercut the Royal Mail which, no matter how hard it tries, is being set up to fail.

This is all being done in the name of “opening up the market” and “competition”.It is for these reasons and others that I shall be voting against proposals to part privatise the Royal Mail.

The Opposition is likely to support the Government when the Bill gets to the Commons. For many Conservatives the alternative is not the status quo but full privatisation.

Gordon Prentice MP
House of Commons