LINDSAY Hoyle has called for the government to ditch the name Consignia for the Post Office and veto plans to open up the Royal Mail's letter service to competition.

The Chorley MP told Postal Minister Douglas Alexander: "I urge you to use your influence to scrap the name Consignia.

"The Royal Mail is the best known name in the UK, after Coca Cola, and it still sticks in my throat to say Consignia. Consignia the name to the dustbin and bring back the Royal Mail.'' He said that the proposals to open up the letter monpoly to competition would lead the private companies "cherry picking'' profitable business and urban services leaving rural ones to decline.

He added: "The unprofitable rural services will then lose the cross-subsidy from the profit made by the urban services and prices for consumers will inevitably rise.

"That will be confined with a fall in standards of service. In simplistic terms the price will rise and the level of service will drop. That is where the suffering will start.

"The universal postal system, with its uniform tarriff, is something that we should cherish. We should not allow it to be abandoned. Only two things can happen.

"Either the rural service will begin to drop away or the price will go up so much that we will have to have a uniform price of about £1. That is when the cherry-picking will start with competitors coming from outside to provide services much more cheaply.

"I hope we will change direction - that we will scrap the name Consginia, bring back the Royal Mail brand and ensure all services are protected in both urban and rural communities.''

Mr Alexander said the government had given Consignia greater commercial freedom in response to representations from management and unions - including the choice of name.