A view from Carolyn Thomas – Welsh Labour’s North Wales Member of the Senedd
Wrexham.com has invited the four North Wales Members of the Senedd to write a monthly column with updates on their work. You can find their updates – along with contributions from the Wrexham and Clwyd South MPs and MSs – here.
In this month’s column for Wrexham.com, Welsh Labour MS Carolyn Thomas writes…
This week has brought with it news that Royal Mail is hoping to cease Saturday deliveries – another potential hammer blow to the service.
Unfortunately, this is just the latest saga in a long-running rip-off of the British public since Royal Mail was sold off and privatised in 2013.
From the very beginning, when the business was undervalued by £1bn, the selling of this iconic state asset has been a scam on the British public, who have had to put up with a more expensive, yet reduced service in order to fund the record profits which shareholders have taken out of the business. The price to send a 1st class letter has nearly doubled in the 10 years since privatisation. Essentially, we’re all paying more for less.
When Royal Mail was sold, an investment bank called Lazard was paid £1.5m to provide ‘flotation advice’ to the government – essentially advising on what share price to set when selling the business on the private market. Lazard themselves then purchased 6 million shares on the day the business was floated, paying their advised price of 330p per share. 48 hours later, they sold those 6 million shares at 470p per share, making a profit of £8.4m.
The announcement that Royal Mail is ‘hoping’ to end Saturday deliveries is the latest episode in a rip-off saga on the British public.
From the very beginning, when the business was undervalued by £1bn, privatisation of Royal Mail has been one big scam.
— Carolyn Thomas MS / AS (@CThomasMS) September 5, 2023
Before Royal Mail was sold off, the state asset had high levels of public satisfaction and was providing revenue for the Treasury which could be reinvested in improving the service. The year of its privatisation, the Treasury received £324m in profit. Since privatisation, instead of these profits benefiting the taxpayer, they now benefit the pockets of a small number of shareholders.
As a former postal worker, I know that as well as the public, it is also the workforce that is bearing the brunt of the profit-obsessed mantra of the business’ senior management.
I worked in the Royal Mail from 2015, after the business was privatised, so I experienced first-hand the negative impact that the sale of the business had on the service and its workers. Posties have had to absorb more houses to deliver to, now walking 12 to 13 miles a day, as well as being monitored and criticised if overtime is booked or time off taken.
There have also been well documented attempts by highly paid senior management to drastically cut jobs and erode the working rights of postal workers.
Removing Saturday deliveries is a further attempt to erode the service in order to protect private profits, and it will have a negative knock-on effect on both the public and the Royal Mail workforce.
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