Mandelson warns Royal Mail rebels

Labour’s Royal Mail rebels should back down because the Tories may soon get power and impose a tougher deal, Lord Mandelson warned.

Labour’s Royal Mail rebels should back down because the Tories may soon get power and impose a tougher deal, Lord Mandelson warned.

The business secretary said it was the current government’s “last throw of the dice” at reforming the postal service, after a decade of failing to find consensus.

An “alternative” administration would propose a deal that was far less palatable to opponents on the left, he insisted.

The comments came as parliament prepares to debate the controversial Postal Services Bill, which would see around 30% of Royal Mail privatised, for the first time.

More than 140 Labour MPs, including at least nine ministerial aides and Gordon Brown’s envoy to Iraq, have signed a Commons motion rejecting the idea of any sell-off.

The size of the rebellion makes it almost certain that the government will have to rely on Conservative votes to push the legislation through.
But speaking on BBC1’s Andrew Marr show, Lord Mandelson issued another plea for the rebels to think again. He insisted the situation in Royal Mail was “very serious” and the finances had to be “turned round”.

“I have got to say I don’t think I could walk away and put it into a bottom drawer and say, this is for someone else to sort out,” he said.

“If we don’t sort this out and simply put it off to another day, and in theory to another government, are they going to sort out Royal Mail in the way that we are choosing to do at the moment? Just getting in a minority strategic partner, sorting out the regulation and the competition, sorting out the pension fund?”

“I think people should look at what we are proposing as a government and see it as a much better deal for the Royal Mail and those who work in it than anything any alternative government would have to offer.”