MPs tore into Business Secretary Vince Cable and his ministerial colleague Michael Fallon as they insisted the Royal Mail privatisation had been a success and they had no regrets over the controversial sell-off.
The ministers rejected claims the company had been sold on the cheap at a cost of more than £1 billion to taxpayers because the price of shares soared after going on offer.
Business Select Committee chairman Adrian Bailey said it was an "astonishing assertion" to claim the shares were sold for the best price, and Tory MP Brian Binley said the ministers had been let down by experts who advised on the sale.
Mr Cable claimed the threat of strike action by Royal Mail staff had contributed to the decision to price the shares at 330p for the initial public offering. He said two weeks of strike action would have "wiped out" the company's profits.
Labour committee member Willie Bain said: "I think the public will be flabbergasted that ministers are happy with the advice that has been tendered given they have foregone hundreds of millions of pounds as a result of this flawed transaction."
Mr Fallon said: "Two years ago we had a loss-making Royal Mail. Today we have one of Britain's top 100 companies. That's a success."
Mr Cable acknowledged there were lessons to be learned about the way privatisations were handled, but said: "Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but on the basis of the facts we had, this was a successful transaction. We don't apologise for it and don't regret it."
After a similar comment by Mr Fallon, Mr Bailey told the ministers: "That's absolutely Alice In Wonderland. The fact is you didn't get the best price because on the day of sale the share prices soared. That's an astonishing assertion."
CWU general secretary Billy Hayes said later: "It's clear Cable needs to go - this is a man who lost the taxpayer a billion pounds. A postal worker who lost a valuable item would be sacked and the same standard needs to apply to Mr Cable."
Royal Mail shares closed last night at 521p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article