Update:
Royal Mail is to be given the power to change the price of all first class and some second class postage. The proposals come from the regulator Ofcom, which took over from Postcomm earlier this month. It said the changes were needed because of "huge changes" in the industry. The only price capped would be the charge for second class letters, which is currently 36 pence.
Royal Mail is being prepared for privatisation. The government plans to sell up to 90% of the business, with the rest being offered to employees....Read more here--: Stamp price rise proposals challenged by MPs
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Royal Mail to get power to set stamp prices Oct 2011 LINKY: Royal Mail To Get New Price Freedoms - allaboutFORUMS
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Royal Mail to get power to set stamp prices
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A first-class stamp will rise in price from 46p to 60p from 30 April after the regulator lifted some price controls on Royal Mail. A second-class stamp will go up from 36p to 50p - some 5p below the top price allowed by Ofcom. The regulator has allowed Royal Mail to set the price of first-class and business mail. It claimed the future of the universal service was at "severe risk" without relaxing controls. The 30% price rise in first-class stamps, and 39% rise for second-class, mark record annual increases. Over the next seven years, the price of second-class stamps will be capped at 55p but this limit could rise with inflation each year. Royal Mail said that the cost of posting Christmas cards in 2012 will be the same as last year for consumers on Pension Credit and Employment and Support Allowance or Incapacity Benefit.....Read more HERE
Royal Mail could hike the price of stamps again despite having imposed price rises just seven months ago and despite growing operating profits. A first-class stamp rose from 46p to 60p on April 30 and second class jumped from 36p to 50p, in one of the biggest rises since the issue of the first stamp, the Penny Black, in 1840. Royal Mail’s chief executive Moya Greene yesterday refused to promise customers that prices will not rise again. Meanwhile, the group yesterday admitted that almost half of all postal deliveries are junk mail and warned that the volume of 'direct marketing mail' will only grow in its drive to make bigger profits. The rise is fuelled by the removal a year ago of a cap that stopped postmen delivering more than three unaddressed letters to a house in a week.....Read more here: Stamp prices could rise again despite Royal Mail's growing profits
First class stamps could soon cost £1 each, according to a new campaign group that opposes Royal Mail privatization. Save Our Royal Mail (SORM), set up by groups representing the countryside, the elderly, small firms and the blind, has urged the Government not to "rush headlong" into a sell-off. It fears a spiralling of prices if stamps are no longer regulated and became eligible for VAT. SORM has also warned that privatising the Royal Mail could lead to fewer deliveries in the countryside and "rocketing" costs to small businesses....Read more here