The Green Paper on Postal Reform (Department of Trade and Industry, 1994) was a United Kingdom government draft plan to privatise and regulate the

UK postal services Postal services in the United Kingdom are provided predominantly by the Royal Mail (and Post Office Limited which oversees post offices). Since 2006, the market has been fully opened to competition which has had greater success in business-to-busin ...

. It set out various options, the key points of the plan being, *writing into law a

universal service Universal service is an economic, legal and business term used mostly in regulated industries, referring to the practice of providing a baseline level of services to every resident of a country. An example of this concept is found in the US Tel ...

obligation for 6-day a week delivery and "affordable" prices *a new independent regulator enforcing standards in a new Citizens' charter *keeping Post Office Counters (now

Post Office Ltd Post Office Limited, formerly Post Office Counters Limited and commonly known as the Post Office, is a state-owned retail post office company in the United Kingdom that provides a wide range of postal and non-postal related products including po ...

) under the same arrangement, with 19,000 privately run offices and 800 Crown offices *introducing more competition by further reducing the postal monopoly from £1 Then it laid out the different options for consultation of, *a 100% privatisation in a Stock Exchange flotation to the public and employees, making the Royal Mail a public company, *a provisional conclusion to

privatise Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation wh ...

Royal Mail Royal Mail Group Limited, trading as Royal Mail, is a British postal service and courier company. It is owned by International Distribution Services. It operates the brands Royal Mail (letters and parcels) and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels) ...

and

Parcelforce Parcelforce Worldwide is a courier and logistics service in the United Kingdom. Parcelforce Worldwide is a trading name of Royal Mail, which is a subsidiary of International Distribution Services, and is organised within the UK Parcels, Inte ...

, with the government retaining 49% of shares in private companies, or, *giving more commercial freedom to Royal Mail and Parcelforce while leaving them in public ownership. In the event, the plans did not go through. It met with support from Post Office managers, who advocated full sale because in their view this was the only way to achieve commercial freedom. It met with opposition from unions, much of the public and backbench Conservative MPs. UK postal services were subsequently reformed with the

Postal Services Act 2000 The Postal Services Act 2000 (c. 26) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, relating to the postal industry. It established an industry regulator, Postcomm (s.1), a consumer watchdog, Postwatch (s.2), required a "universal service" ...

and the

Postal Services Act 2011 The Postal Services Act 2011 (c. 5) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The act enabled the British Government to sell shares in Royal Mail to private investors and includes the possible mutualisation of the Post Office. The act ...

Debate

On 19 May 1994 the Green Paper was to be presented to the House of Commons. The issue was taken up in Prime Minister's Question Time by

Margaret Beckett Margaret Mary Beckett, Baroness Beckett, (; born 15 January 1943), is a British politician. She was a member of Parliament (MP) for more than 45 years, first from 1974 to 1979 and then from 1983 to 2024. A member of the Labour Party, she was ...

as leader of the Labour Party opposition. Later that afternoon

Michael Heseltine Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket Media Group in 1957. Heseltine se ...

as The

President of the Board of Trade The president of the Board of Trade is head of the Board of Trade. A committee of the His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Privy Council of the United Kingdom, it was first established as a temporary committee of inquiry in the 17th centur ...

and

Secretary of State for Trade and Industry The secretary of state for business and trade (business secretary), is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Department for Business and Trade. The incumb ...

did present the proposals of the Green Paper. The Post Office, he began, Then followed the debate, opened to the floor of the whole house. Some of the notable contributions are extracted.

Notes

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References

*London Economics, ''The Future of Postal Services: A Critique of the Government's Green Paper'' (September 1994) Postal system of the United Kingdom