Rank and file reject Royal Mail reforms
The Liberal Democrat leadership has been voted down for the second time in 24 hours after delegates at the annual conference rejected plans to part privatise the Post Office.
A four-point plan put to delegates in Blackpool was sent back for review after critics described it as the “Railtrack of the letter boxes”, “muddled and ill-thought out”.
The Royal Mail will be opened up to competition from January 1st next year, but is facing a £2.5 billion pension black hole and needs between £2 billion and £3 billion to modernise and make it fit for an open market.
The Lib Dem proposals would split the Post Office and Royal Mail, floating a third of the mail delivery shares on the stock market, making a third available to small investors and giving a third to employees in the form of a trust.
The Post Office would be maintained within the public sector, and receive £2 billion investment to modernise and for the reinstatement of many of the closed or threatened sub-post offices around the country.
But while trade and industry spokesman Norman Lamb urged delegates to “be bold” and support the motion, the rank and file rebelled for the second time in two days.
Yesterday they rejected a proposal to put a cap on European Union spending, in a move that signals an increasing divide in the party ahead of its internal policy review.
Proposing the motion, Mr Lamb insisted that the Lib Dems “need to be bold and endorse a liberal way of addressing very serious challenges”.
He insisted that prevaricating on the issue – such as referring the motion back for further debate – was not possible given the challenges facing Royal Mail when it was opened up for competition next year.
The leadership’s plans to revive the Post Office network, impose a statutory duty on government to maintain it and giving the mail delivery company ” a first class chance to succeed” was a “positive campaign with real teeth”, he said.
Lorely Burt, MP for Solihull, backed the idea as “innovative”, while Charles Anglin, a councillor in London’s Vauxhall, warned: “When did we become the party that was afraid of new ideas?”
However, there was criticism on all sides about the costing of the project, with Jane Marks, a councillor from Guildford, describing it as “muddled and ill-thought out”.
She also raised questions about the share of Royal Mail allocated to employees, describing it as a “fig leaf” and arguing that in fact the plans did not go far enough.
Meanwhile, John Hemming, MP for Birmingham Yardley, said the plans “do not give the full story”, and called for it to be “referred back and voted out”.
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