Share sales are an attack on us all says Michael Connarty MP

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I have been the Organising Secretary of the CWU Group of MP's in the UK parliament for more than 15 years 'standing up for the Royal Mail and the Posties' as an MP as I was asked by my predecessor Harry Ewing MP who was himself a former postman. It was good to read the contribution in the Falkirk Herald by my good friend Willie Marshall, who was Chair of the local Central & Lothian Branch when I was given the honour of becoming a member of the CWU. MPs pay our union dues like those who still work in the industry but we work FOR the service, rather than IN the service.

Over the years I have organised dozens of lobbies, briefings, motions and debates on behalf of the Communication Workers including against the Privatisation Bill and engaged in questioning the Government's recent decision to sell off shares in the Royal mail now that it is in profit. I have continually tried to warn the public about the clauses in the Privatisation Act that show this is only Part One of a plan to destroy the idea of a Universal Obligation to deliver Postal services to all parts of the UK for the same price. The Mail Privatisation Act does not even protect the cost of First Class post, but only Second class letters must cost the same wherever they go in the UK.

The Act contains a list of clauses than can be changed and dropped at any time in the future - not by changing the main Act in by debate in the House of Commons, but by any future Minister in a little Statutory Instrument's Committee with less than 20 MP's up in the committee Corridor of the UK Parliament. Clauses to prevent regional postal systems, to protect the terms and conditions of employment of postal workers or to protect the Universal Service Obligation can all be swept away without a proper debate. It is a set-up, so that future private owners can apply to a Minister to be allowed to carve up the service into profitable city based areas and dump the costly, sparsely populated or more remote areas on to expensive regional or district based companies.

The growth area in deliveries is in parcels, but the costs of sending parcels are not protected in the Act, and already it costs more to send parcels to more distant parts of the UK. For small businesses particularly in the modern growth sectors that rely on the internet, the delivery of the goods they produce or trade in must be delivered with a speedy and affordable parcels service. This should be based on a Universal pricing policy that shares the overall costs of the service in a way that uses the profits from delivering in large urban cities to help reduce the costs to the sparser communities in the most far flung parts of the UK, whether in Cornwall or Kintyre, Devon or Dornoch.

One of the great flaws of a proposed independent Mail Service based only on Scotland is that at present the large conurbations in England with 60 million people generate profits that help keep down the Universal cost of post to rural Scotland. If only profits from the post of 3 million people in the urban areas of Scotland had to support an Independent Universal, one-price-goes-anywhere post, either the price for everyone would sky-rocket or the Scottish Government would have to pour in a massive subsidy for every letter from people's taxes.

I support the CWU decision to take industrial action to let the people of the UK and the business community know that they, like over 70% of the population of the UK oppose this privatisation. It has been the workforce that has helped modernise the mail service, including absorbing 60 thousand job losses while the bosses have taken millions in bonuses for the jobs they cut. At the outset a future UK Government must change the present Act to stop anyone removing the safeguards that are in the Act, - then the work must start to rebuild a public Mail and parcels service that every community and business deserves. I will be campaigning to win a pledge from a future Labour Government that as soon as the finance can be found the Royal Mail will be reconstructed as a public service where it belongs.

Michael Connarty
Michael Connarty MP
Linlithgow & East Falkirk constituency
E mail: Michael.Connarty.MP@parliament.uk
Web site : http://www.mconnartymp.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;