oday, we are demonstrating in the constituencies of two of the Lib Dem Ministers who want to privatise Royal Mail -- Vince Cable and Ed Davey. They are both Lib Dems -- willing hostages in the Tory Government. We are not really picking upon them. A few days ago, the CWU organised a successful demonstration in David Cameron's own constituency.
But as Ministers directly supporting the proposed Bill to privatise Royal Mail, it is important that we take this case to their local constituents. The Ministers won't listen to the arguments of the CWU. The Ministers won't listen to the opinion of the general public -- who regularly oppose Royal Mail privatisation in opinion polls. The Ministers won't even listen to the opinions of their own Lib Dem supporters -- who in a poll on 1st October showed a majority against the privatisation of Royal Mail. Perhaps the Ministers may listen to the voice of their own constituency electorate. We shall see -- however today is only the start of working in their constituencies. The Kingston and Surbiton Labour Party will be leafleting house to house. Doubtless other local activists will want to take up other activity to defend the postal service.
The arguments against the Bill are straight forward. The Government intends to privatise and break up Royal Mail. The Ministers offer lots of warm words to suggest that the future of local post office branches are secure. But if you privatise Royal Mail then you allow it to look for other retail outlets than post office branches. A privatised Royal Mail -- searching for every possible profit -- will want to use other retail outlets than a publicly owned, loss making post office network.
The Ministers have refused to allow any guarantees in the legislation that there will be an inter-business agreement between Royal Mail and Post Office Network. The Ministers know that puts a question mark over the future of the network. But political calculation, and cynicism, mean they can't admit that privatisation of Royal Mail will undermine post office branches, and will result in massive numbers of closures of local post office branches. Well, we mustn't accept such two faced policy making. We insist that Royal Mail and Post Office Counters should stay together as public services. The privatisation of Royal Mail will also lead to a loss of the Universal Service that Royal Mail currently provides. Today, you can post letters, parcels and packets with Royal Mail and get a guarantee that they will be delivered Monday to Saturday, anywhere in the country for a single stamp price.
It costs much more in real terms to send a letter from Surbiton to the Isle of Skye than it does to send it to Sutton. But today you pay the same price -- while Royal Mail remains a public service. A privatised Royal Mail will want to maximise the bottom line -- for sacred profit for the blessed shareholders. Shareholders will want quick and fast returns on their investment. They will not want to subsidise the loss making services and areas.
So there will be huge pressure on ending Universal Service. And the Government has created 15 separate points of the Bill which allow for the service to be reviewed, undermined and minimised. We already know that a privatised Royal Mail will be much more expensive. The privatised mail companies -- TNT and Deutsche Post -- deliver first and second class letters for around twice the price of Royal Mail in their own home markets. So for domestic customers -- and small and medium enterprises -- privatisation of Royal Mail will lead to a poorer and more expensive service. That's why we oppose privatisation and that's why we must keep fighting.
Now we have a few months to defeat the Bill. It's going to be debated and voted upon in a number of stages in the House of Lords. There will be a fight inside the Lords on this. The Government cannot guarantee a majority there -- so every bit of pressure we can apply by this campaign will be important. And it has to come back to the House of Commons for final approval of amendments to the Bill and the voting on the Bill as a whole.
This was the stage when we defeated Michael Heseltine's Bill to privatise Royal Mail in 1994. So the fight is obviously not over. After today -- I hope you will all step up your campaign against this Bill. But for now, I want to thank you all for coming out today and supporting this action.
Thank you for listening. Together we will win.
Billy Hayes on 01/22 at 11:30 AM
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CWU POSTAL PROTEST ARRIVES IN KINGSTONby ROYALMAILNOTFORSALE210 views
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