When Royal Mail was privatised, one of its putative competitors predicted that within 10 years the universal postal service, guaranteeing six-day delivery, would appear as outdated as red telephone boxes. On Wednesday, the communications regulator, Ofcom, appeared set on fulfilling that prophecy. It said that Royal Mail should be able to cut postal deliveries to as few as three days a week. Ofcom wants a debate about whether anything gets done urgently by letter in an age of electronic communication. The discussion with voters is likely to be a short one, a thought not lost on the prime minister, who quickly ruled out any change to deliveries.
The watchdog argues that, while Royal Mail’s “universal service obligation” has not changed since 2011, the volume of letters sent in the UK has halved over the same period. The company, it reckons, could save £650m if it delivered letters just three days a week and £200m by stopping Saturday deliveries. The logic of this wrong-headed policy is to socialise the pain and privatise the gain. The fallout will be worst for those least able to deal with the change: people in rural areas, small businesses and elderly people. These groups are also the most sensitive to price increases, which has not stopped the cost of first-class stamps more than doubling since privatisation.
