Royal Mail price rises

From 2 April, the price of a 1st class stamp increased by 10p to £1.35 and the price of a 2nd class stamp increased by 10p to 85p. From calculations carried out in January this year, Royal Mail have said that these new prices are below European mean average prices of £1.66 for 1st class and £1.26 for 2nd class.

When announcing the price rise, the Royal Mail stated it has sought to keep price increases as low as possible in the face of increasing cost pressures and wage increases, declining letter volumes and lack of reform of the Universal Service Obligation (USO).

Letter volumes have fallen from 20 billion in 2004–5 to seven billion a year in 2022–23, while the number of addresses has risen by four million in the same period. The average adult spends less than £7 a year on stamped letters, and people now receive on average just two letters per week.

The company states that the USO, requiring Royal Mail to deliver letters to all 32 million UK addresses six days a week, needs urgent reform. Delivering an ever-decreasing number of letters to an ever-growing number of households six days a week is increasingly expensive and unsustainable. Postal regulator Ofcom has recently asked for input on options for the reform of the USO given the dramatic reduction in letter volumes in recent years.

Additionally, in recent weeks, the national media has been featuring stories accusing China of flooding the UK with fake Royal Mail barcoded stamps.

Available on ebay and Amazon, these stamps are being bought unknowingly by small retailers, who don’t have to buy their stock directly from Royal Mail.

Warnings have been issued to look out for strange perforations, a shine to the surface or the colour not being quite right, but with the counterfeits now so good, it is very hard to spot the difference. Anyone who receives a letter with a fake stamp was being charged £5 by Royal Mail, but this fee has now been paused.