North Thanet`s MP, Roger Gale, has this (Sunday 9th January) morning welcomed the announcement that the coalition government has reached agreement with Buckingham Palace to preserve the position of the monarch`s head on postage stamps in the event of the sale of the Royal Mail.
 
Speaking in his constituency the MP, who first raised the matter on the floor of the House of Commons at the beginning of October, said:
 
“Naturally I am pleased that the concerns that I and others have expressed to the Secretary of State (Vince Cable) have been heeded and that as a result the Queen`s head will continue to appear on our stamps in perpetuity.
 
I am not sure, though, that I yet understand how it will be possible to preserve the Royal charter and the title “Royal Mail” in the event of the sale of the company to, say, TNT (Dutch) or Deutschepost (German).
 
Immediately, however, there are clearly very real concerns about the re-structuring of the company introduced under the new Chief Executive: if the dreadful experience of my constituents in Herne Bay over Christmas is anything to go by – and I believe that it is – then much greater attention to detail is going to have to be given to detail before further changes are rolled out if the service is not to deteriorate and if we are not to see the collapse of the universal delivery first-class service. We must not allow a private purchaser to “cherry-pick” the easy and profitable elements of the mail service – as has already to some extent happened – while escaping from the duty to deliver mail to any destination in the United Kingdom on a first-class and in a timely fashion”.

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