Post Office Letter by Nigel Quinton

10.23.32am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 25th Apr 2008

Nigel Quinton wrote the following letter to the Welwyn Hatfield Times:

Dear Sir

Further to the excellent letter in the 9 April edition from Mr Aitken of Harwood Hill, I agree that a lot of what we are seeing at the moment from politicians could be described as election gimmicks.

That said it is no bad thing that politicians, national or local, are thinking about the post office network. As Liberal Democrats, we have been running campaigns for years to keep local post offices open, but of greater significance is the national policy which we approved in March 2006. This proposes the split of Royal Mail and the Post Office, and the partial privatisation of Royal Mail raising £2 billion to be invested in our post office network. Ownership of Royal Mail would be shared between staff, government and the market.

In this way, we could significantly enhance the post office network, giving it a defined social role and an injection of new funds - and ending the uncertainty which currently hangs over it. Left as it is it will wither and die.

We would protect the universal service obligation at a uniform tariff. Royal Mail would be able to access the funds necessary to invest in automation, giving it the capacity to compete.

We would retain, in Royal Mail, a real stake for employees. Given the number of employees - about 200,000 - this presents a unique opportunity to implement a form of ownership model that would give employees a substantial share in their enterprise and a real say in its management and strategy.

Now if we could persuade the other parties to support this model, we might see an end to the constant fighting to keep local post offices open, and an end to the worst of the electoral opportunism that inevitably brings with it.

Cllr Nigel Quinton