The Green Paper on Postal Reform (Department of Trade and Industry, 1994) was a United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 government draft plan to privatise and regulate the UK postal services. It set out various options, the key points of the plan being,

• writing into law a universal service
  Universal service
  Universal service is an economic, legal and business term used mostly in regulated industries, referring to the practice of providing a baseline level of services to every resident of a country...
  
   obligation for 6 day a week delivery and "affordable" prices
• a new independent regulator enforcing standards in a new Citizens' charter
• keeping Post Office Counters (now Post Office Ltd) under the same arrangement, with 19,000 privately run offices and 800 Crown offices
• introducing more competition by further reducing the postal monopoly from £1

Then it laid out the different options for consultation of,

• a 100% privatisation in a Stock Exchange flotation to the public and employees, making the Royal Mail a public company,
• a provisional conclusion to privatise Royal Mail
  Royal Mail
  Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...
  
   and Parcelforce
  Parcelforce
  Parcelforce Worldwide is a courier and logistics service in the United Kingdom. Parcelforce Worldwide is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd.Its international partner network allows it to extend its delivery reach worldwide...
  
  , with the government retaining 49% of shares in private companies, or,
• giving more commercial freedom to Royal Mail and Parcelforce while leaving them in public ownership.

In the event, the plans did not go through. It met with support from Post Office managers, who advocated full sale because in their view this was the only way to achieve commercial freedom. It met with opposition from unions, much of the public and backbench Conservative MPs.

Debate

On 19 May 1994 the Green Paper was to be presented to the House of Commons. The issue was taken up in Prime Minister's Question Time by Margaret Beckett

Margaret Beckett

Margaret Mary Beckett is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Derby South since 1983, rising to become the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party under John Smith, from 18 July 1992 to 12 May 1994, and briefly serving as Leader of the Party following Smith's death...

 as leader of the Labour Party opposition.
Later that afternoon Michael Heseltine

Michael Heseltine

Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC is a British businessman, Conservative politician and patron of the Tory Reform Group. He was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001 and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major...

 as The President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry

Secretary of State for Trade and Industry

The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is a cabinet position in the United Kingdom government. Its secondary title is the President of the Board of Trade...

 did present the proposals of the Green Paper. The Post Office, he began,
Then followed the debate, opened to the floor of the whole house. Some of the notable contributions are extracted.