The price of Royal Mail stamps has increased - full list of what you have to pay now

The humble stamp is the latest household item to have risen in price this month.

April always sees the rise of household items and other costs as it marks the start of the new financial year. And from Tuesday the cost of sending letters and parcels has also increased.

It is the second rise in just over six months as prices also rose in October last year.

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Announcing the latest hike back in March, Nick Landon, chief commercial officer at Royal Mail, said: “We always consider price changes very carefully but we face a situation where letter volumes have reduced dramatically over recent years while costs have increased.

“It is no longer sustainable to maintain a network built for 20 billion letters when we are now only delivering seven billion.

“As a result of letter volume decline, our posties now have to walk more than three times as far to deliver the same number of letters as before, increasing the delivery costs per letter.”

The increase comes just over a month after Ofcom said Royal Mail could be allowed to cut its letter deliveries to five days a week or three, as it warned the UK postal service risked becoming “unsustainable” without reform.

Last year, industry regulator Ofcom said increases to the price of second-class stamps would be capped at the rate of inflation until 2029 in an effort to keep the sending of letters affordable.