North MPs oppose Gordon Brown's Royal Mail privatisation plan

May 6 2009 by Will Green and Adrian Pearson, The Journal

GORDON Brown remains on a collision course with his own party over privatising the Royal Mail with a dozen North Labour MPs opposing the plan.

Compromise proposals to turn Royal Mail into a not-for-profit company, similar to Network Rail, rather than selling off at least a third to an overseas company were yesterday rejected by the Government.

The news comes despite a dozen Labour MPs from the North East– along with more than 160 colleagues – urging the Government to drop its plans in a Commons motion, warning they “risk fracturing one of Britain’s greatest public services”.

Newcastle Central MP Jim Cousins called on ministers to reconsider their position quickly before the plans come before MPs next month or face another defeat like that suffered over Gurkhas’ settlement rights.

“I am hoping that the proposition that will be put over Royal Mail will be rather different from the one that is on the table now. Part of the reason for making your views clear in numbers as I and a lot of my colleagues have done is to get the Government to change its position.

“I hope that we won’t have a repeat of the situation last week when the Government did change its position, for example on the Gurkhas but far too late in the day to make any difference,” said the Labour MP.

He added the Royal Mail needed to retain its “own clever thinking” and not import it, which risked leaving it “in hoc” to an outside company forever.