Part-privatisation of the Post Office

THE ARGUMENTS FOR

Though it made a profit of £255m in the first nine months of the 2008/09 financial year, the Royal Mail's pension fund deficit of £9bn means that it is simply not a solvent business.

The Royal Mail, in its current form, is a failing organisation, which doesn't match the standards set by its European equivalents.

Modern forms of communication such as email, texting and social networking are reducing the volume of mail sent in the UK by between 7 and 8 per cent every year. The Royal Mail has to adapt to this changing and more competitive marketplace, and needs the injection of capital that part-privatisation would bring.

Nowadays, only 14 per cent of letters are personal correspondence - the rest is mail sent by businesses, much of it junk. So the Royal Mail is no longer primarily a service run for the public - it's a company used by private businesses and subsidised by the taxpayer. The ideological argument for keeping the Royal Mail state-run is therefore a false one.

Selling off 30 per cent of the Royal Mail is the only way that the business can continue to fulfil its fundamental requirement - delivering mail six days a week to almost every household in the country.

THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST

The Royal Mail is a national institution with a history dating back to 1516, and still the only affordable way by which people can send letters. Even Margaret Thatcher resisted privatising it. It would be wrong to sell off part of our heritage.

Whichever firm takes over will be able to make easy money. Private ownership will ultimately lead to thousands of redundancies, a reduction in services and higher prices.

A government that has allocated billions to effectively nationalising a great chunk of the banking system should be able to find a fraction of that sum to keep hold of the Royal Mail.

Any form of privatisation breaks a specific pledge that Labour made about the Royal Mail in their 2005 election manifesto

Standards may not necessarily be maintained after part-privatisation: it is feared that unprofitable personal mail would be downgraded. ·