Now price of a first class stamp hits £1.10

A FIRST class stamp is to cost more than £1 for the first time.

The price is rising by 15p to £1.10 from April . That means first class stamps, which are intended to get letters to their destination the next working day, will have risen in price by an inflation-busting 29 per cent since 2004 when they cost 28p.

The price of a second class stamp is also going up, by 7p to 75p. The new prices are coming in a day before the first stamps featuring the profile of King Charles become generally available.

On the new stamp, Charles appears with no crown or diadem, the first monarch since Queen Victoria and the Penny Black not to feature some sort of regalia. It is said to be the personal choice of the King himself.

Royal Mail insists the latest of many steep rises is essential to ensure the ‘Universal Service remains sustainable’ – this is its requirement to deliver post everywhere in Britain, six days a week, for the same set fee.

But Citizens Advice said that with many letters delayed in the post customers should not have to pay more for a ‘sub-par service’. It called for the communications regulator Ofcom to intervene.

The rising cost of first class stamps: 2000 – 27p; 2004 – 28p; 2008 – 9p; 2010 – 41p; 2018 – 67p; 2019 – 70p; 2020 – 76p; 2021 – 85p; 2022 – 95p.