UK Regulator grilled on Royal Mail

THE mail regulator faced a grilling from MPs yesterday over proposals to liberalise the mail market while curbing Royal Mail’s own prices. Graham Corbett, Postcomm regulator, told a select committee headed by Martin Stanley that his 240-page document on price controls and increases for Royal Mail was not “regulatory treacle”, as it was dubbed by Allan Leighton, Royal Mail chairman. “What monopolists think of as regulatory treacle is what most consumers think of as proper oversight,” Mr Corbett retorted. He also said he considered that 28 days to reply to the document, published last week, was sufficient for Royal Mail and the consumer watchdog Postwatch, despite their protests to the contrary. He said: “I don’t understand why this would be an insufficient period.” But Lindsay Hoyle, a committee member, said the “very tight schedule” could affect “the viability of two hundred thousand people’s final salary schemes”.

Mr Corbett said one way of dealing with the pressing issue of “cherry-picking” in the mail market would be to revoke competitors’ mail licences.