Royal Mail(Renationalisation)-Scottish Parliament Questions

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Iain Gray (Labour)

6. To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the costs and processes involved in renationalising the Royal Mail in an independent Scotland and with whom it has consulted. (S4O-02527)

John Swinney (Scottish National Party)

The Scottish Government is in contact with a range of relevant stakeholders about the future of the postal service. The cost of securing a publicly owned mail service in Scotland will be based on the value of the assets at the time.

Iain Gray (Labour)

The day after the First Minister made his surprise commitment—by which I mean that it was a surprise to the cabinet secretary—I heard Mr Swinney explain on the radio that he would achieve that promise by using Scotland’s share of the proceeds of the Royal Mail sale to buy back Royal Mail assets in Scotland. The problem with that, of course, is that because Royal Mail was so foolishly sold off at a bargain-basement price, those assets are worth at least 70 per cent more than when the First Minister made the promise. How does he now plan to pay for it?

John Swinney (Scottish National Party)

That is a very interesting take on this question. I thought that Mr Gray lodged his question because he was going to set out the Labour Party’s willingness to work with us to bring this asset back into public hands.

Mr Gray bemoans the sell-off of the Royal Mail at an undervalued price. The shares were sold off at a price of between 260p and 330p and they are now trading at 530p. I did not take that decision; the useless United Kingdom Government took that decision. That lot over on the Labour side want to allow the United Kingdom Government to carry on taking useless and stupid decisions about the future of our country.

If Mr Gray wants to come here and offer a helpful intervention in the process, he should do what the member of Parliament for North Ayrshire did—who is a Labour MP, I might add—and support the renationalisation of the Royal Mail.