Press release

Michael Fallon response to Royal Mail’s annual results

Business Minister Michael Fallon responds to Royal Mail's annual results out today

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Responding to Royal Mail’s annual results out today, Business Minister Michael Fallon said:

These results from Royal Mail are another encouraging step, showing how their staff and management, together with our reforms, are putting the company on a sustainable footing.

The final stage of our reforms is to give Royal Mail future access to private capital through a sale of shares by Government this financial year (2013/14). We are committed to a sale but its structure and timing remain open. Government is committed to implementing its reforms in full to ensure that we achieve our overall objective of securing the universal postal service.

Notes for editors

1.The government’s economic policy objective is to achieve ‘strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country and between industries’. It set four ambitions in the ‘Plan for Growth’ (PDF 1.7MB), published at Budget 2011:

  • to create the most competitive tax system in the G20
  • to make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business
  • to encourage investment and exports as a route to a more balanced economy
  • to create a more educated workforce that is the most flexible in Europe.

Work is underway across government to achieve these ambitions, including progress on more than 250 measures as part of the Growth Review. Developing an Industrial Strategy gives new impetus to this work by providing businesses, investors and the public with more clarity about the long-term direction in which the government wants the economy to travel.

Published 21 May 2013