Tag: Royal Mail

Stamp prices must rise to cover the cost of delivering letters, the chief executive of Royal Mail said yesterday. Adam Crozier told delegates at the CBI annual conference in Birmingham that the subsidising of personal letters by businesses would have to end over the next few years. Mr Crozier said: “Stamp prices will need to go up. The price people pay ought to bear some resemblance to the cost of providing the service.” The postal group is expected to increase the price of a first-class stamp from 28p to 29p or 30p in April. Any price rise would have to be announced by the end of the year, although Royal Mail said that no such decision had been made. The price of posting a first-class letter has increased by only 2p since July 1996. Royal Mail lost GBP247 million delivering stamped mail last year. The group loses 5p on every first-class stamped letter it delivers, and 9p on every second-class letter. Mr Crozier said that the mesh of cross subsidies in the postal system would have to be unwound for Royal Mail to survive increasing competition for business mail.

Royal Mail today welcomed Channel Four’s acknowledgement that a key part of April’s Dispatches film concerning the alleged theft of a Barclaycard was inaccurate, and that a mock-up of a postal worker stealing money from a birthday card in a newspaper advertisement for the programme was not backed up by any similar acts filmed by undercover reporters. Chief Executive Adam Crozier said, “Royal Mail and its people face more scrutiny in the media than most organisations. That’s fair enough – but from time to time when a real inaccuracy is portrayed, we need to intevene to ensure that our side is put across in a fair and balanced way.“