Chuka Umunna MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, commenting on the National Audit Office’s report on the privatisation of Royal Mail, said:

“This report delivers a damning verdict on the Tory-led government’s botched Royal Mail fire sale, leaving the taxpayer disgracefully short changed by hundreds of millions of pounds. At the same time, stamp prices have shot up by 30 per cent and vital services have been put at risk at a time when families are already being hit by a cost-of-living crisis.
 
“We now know definitively that far better value for taxpayers could have been possible had Ministers adopted a different timetable for the sale. The NAO could not be clearer: the inflexible timetable set by Ministers for Royal Mail’s privatisation resulted in the public losing out. Labour raised concerns that the full value of Royal Mail’s property portfolio was not being reflected – the government dismissed this at the time, but today’s report shows we were right.
 
“When Royal Mail was privatised, Vince Cable described the huge rise in its share price as ‘froth’, but since then it has continued to rise. He and David Cameron have serious questions to answer on the hundreds of millions of pounds they have lost British taxpayers and cannot duck responsibility for what has happened.”