Green Paper on Postal Reform
United Kingdom government draft plan
The Green Paper on Postal Reform (Department of Trade and Industry, 1994) was a United Kingdom government draft plan to privatise and regulate the UK postal services. It set out various options, the key points of the plan being,
writing into law a universal service obligation for 6-day a week delivery and "affordable" prices
a new independent regulator enforcing standards in a new Citizens' charter
keeping Post Office Counters (now Post Office Ltd) under the same arrangement, with 19,000 privately run offices and 800 Crown offices
introducing more competition by further reducing the postal monopoly from £1
Then it laid out the different options for consultation of,
a 100% privatisation in a Stock Exchange flotation to the public and employees, making the Royal Mail a public company,
a provisional conclusion to privatise Royal Mail and Parcelforce, with the government retaining 49% of shares in private companies, or,
giving more commercial freedom to Royal Mail and Parcelforce while leaving them in public ownership.
In the event, the plans did not go through. It met with support from Post Office managers, who advocated full sale because in their view this was the only way to achieve commercial freedom. It met with opposition from unions, much of the public and backbench Conservative MPs.
UK postal services were subsequently reformed with the Postal Services Act 2000 and the Postal Services Act 2011.
Debate
On 19 May 1994 the Green Paper was to be presented to the House of Commons. The issue was taken up in Prime Minister's Question Time by Margaret Beckett as leader of the Labour Party opposition.
Mrs. Beckett: When the Post Office was not even mentioned in the Conservative party election manifesto and the effects of privatisation are causing chaos on British Rail and pushing up gas prices for ordinary families, why are the Government now looking to privatise the Post Office?
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