{"id":517220,"date":"2026-04-07T07:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/517220\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T07:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:32:08","slug":"price-of-first-class-stamp-rises-to-1-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/517220\/","title":{"rendered":"Price of first class stamp rises to \u00a31.80"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago, a first class stamp cost 64p while a second class stamp was 55p. The latest price increase means a first class stamp is now almost three times more expensive than it was a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Announcing the rise last month<\/a>, Royal Mail’s managing director of letters, Richard Travers, said: “We always consider price changes very carefully, balancing affordability with the rising cost of delivering mail.”<\/p>\n

Dean Morris, who runs a greeting cards business, says delivery times have become slower and less consistent in the last few years.<\/p>\n

The impact on his business has been more reputational than economic, he told BBC Breakfast, with customers chasing orders six to seven days after postage.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes it feels that second class is literally the last thing that Royal Mail look at, in preference to parcels, but a lot of people use second class, a lot of online retailers use second class, because it is an affordable option for both us and the customer.”<\/p>\n

The jump in stamp prices over the past few years, together with Royal Mail’s poor delivery performance, has angered many consumer groups.<\/p>\n

The rise has been criticised by the charity Citizens Advice, which last month said price rises should be tied to performance.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, the Royal Mail has faced several complaints from MPs and the public about its letter service.<\/p>\n

Last month, postal workers from across the UK told the BBC they were being asked to move or hide mail<\/a> from senior bosses so it looked like delivery targets were being met.<\/p>\n

The company said it took claims that posties were hiding letters “very seriously”, adding 92% of letters were delivered on time.<\/p>\n

March also saw Royal Mail bosses answer questions from MPs about the ongoing postal delays. Its owner, Daniel K\u0159et\u00ednsk\u00fd, admitted the service was not perfect but said he had a plan to fix the situation.<\/p>\n

That came after the chair of the Business and Trade Committee, Liam Byrne, said he was “very concerned” over reports of “significant failures” in Royal Mail’s letter service.<\/p>\n

In February, the committee wrote to Royal Mail asking for commitments to improve what it described as “chaos” in some postal areas since Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ten years ago, a first class stamp cost 64p while a second class stamp was 55p. The latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-517220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}