Future of Postal Services

Andy Carter Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir Gary. Occasionally, sitting on the Government Benches, I wonder whether I am going to get in on a debate, but today I have. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali) for bringing forward the debate. I am conscious that there is another debate later in the week on a similar topic, so I will confine my observations to two or three areas.

Let me start by saying that I agree with many of the things that the hon. Member raised about the hard-working posties who deliver mail to homes across the UK. They provide an invaluable service. Anyone who recognises the time spent waiting at Christmas for a card or parcel to arrive knows how important that service is. But it is also important to say that when the market changes, companies operating in those sectors have to change. If they do not, they simply will not be around in the future.

I put that point in the context of the number of letters that are sent by individuals in the UK annually. In 2004-05, Royal Mail delivered around 20 billion letters. Last year, that figure had dropped to 8 billion. The change is dramatic, and is not surprising when we consider how we live our lives today. We simply do not send as many things in the post as we once did.

While I absolutely agree that the universal service obligation should be retained, there is a need for Royal Mail to reconsider how it operates, to ensure that everybody continues to get the services. Crucially, it is the parcel market that is important. That is a vital sector for my constituency and I look forward to speaking further on this issue in coming weeks.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

One and a half minutes flies by. I call Jeremy Corbyn.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali) for securing the debate. The current dispute of Royal Mail workers with the Royal Mail Group, led by the CWU, is appalling because of the sacrifices that those workers are making. I have stood with them on many picket lines, in my constituency and other places, and talked to them about the way their jobs have changed and the stress that they are under. They are now threatened with job losses through redundancy, a below-inflation pay rise and a speeding up of the way in which their work is done. The situation is appalling.

We need to value our postal workers for being part of our communities and for their dedication. Our service was unfortunately privatised by the coalition Government —thank you, Liberal Democrats, for your contribution to that Government—and separated from the Post Office. That is absolutely the wrong way to do things. We ought to keep the Post Office and Royal Mail as one.

We should absolutely retain the universal service obligation, so that every address in the whole country can get a letter or parcel. The hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) said that the number of letters has reduced. Yes it has, and the number of parcels has increased. The world has changed, but Royal Mail is there, with the universal service obligation, to meet all those changes in our society. If we take the universal service obligation away, we will be left with a lot of pretty incompetent private sector delivery companies, which simply will not be up to the mark.

[Andy Carter]

rose—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not calling the hon. Member incompetent.