Alistair Darling says Post Office needs "greater commercial freedom"
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Alistair Darling has confirmed that the Post Office could be privatised.
In an interview this morning on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost programme he said "we want to give them greater commercial freedom to compete here and elsewhere. The Post Office has to be set on a proper footing to compete properly."
He was responding to the front page of the Mail on Sunday, which reports that the post Office has drawn up blueprints for privatisation that would net the government £2 billion.
Mr Darling did stress that the plans had not been made by the government by stemmed from the Post Office itself.
In a week where the new government has made some radical changes, principally handing control of income tax levels to the Bank of England, Mr Darling was asked if he and Chancellor Brown had planned these moves before the election.
"Our position regarding the Bank was laid out in the manifesto" he said "... but the timing was sensitive and we thought it was the right thing to do, and the right time was immediately."
Laying out the long term economic plan, Mr Darling said "We set out to increase investment. We have high levels of consumer demand and low industrial output. We need to achieve stability and low inflation, and that's why we gave such powers to the Bank."
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Breakfast with Frost
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Darling gives advice to Tories
As a newly elected government who, as a political party have gone through some drastic changes, Mr Darling did have some advice for the Conservative Party.
"I don't want to intrude on private grief, although I see some of it is spilling out publicly," he said "but they might want to look at what we did when we had troubled times all those years ago. We went through a root and branch examination ... but really it's a matter for them. I don't mind who they pick."
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