Royal Mail: Performance

Catherine Fookes Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing this debate on Royal Mail performance. Royal Mail’s reliability has become a big problem nationally, as we can all see. Alongside many parliamentary colleagues, I wrote to the Minister to raise serious concerns about delivery, which has simply not been good enough. I noticed it when I tried to invite my constituents to a local “Tea with your MP” event and half the invitations failed to arrive before the event, which caused much consternation.

I completely understand why people are deeply worried about missing critical, time-sensitive mail, which my casework shows. One constituent, like others, received a letter from the hospital after a vital medical appointment, so she missed it. An elderly resident had her phone cut off by BT because Royal Mail failed to deliver her paper bills. She does not have the internet and relies entirely on the post to stay connected. Others have resorted to getting their own mail from sorting offices, but in Cornwall, where it is hard to get around by public transport, particularly to sorting offices with limited opening hours, that has caused a real issue. The picture nationally is just as concerning. Citizens Advice reported that over Christmas 2025, 16 million people experienced letter delays, a 50% jump on the previous year, and 5.7 million adults missed vital letters about health appointments, benefit decisions and legal notices.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend talks about medical appointments, and I was horrified to hear from a constituent of mine in his 80s who did not have post for a whole month recently. He was waiting for bank cards and medical correspondence, and missed an appointment because of that lack of post. My hon. Friend mentioned rural areas. Does she agree with me that not receiving post makes people a lot more vulnerable?

[Jayne Kirkham]

Yes, indeed—particularly my elderly residents who simply cannot get around. It will be the same in my hon. Friend’s area.

Like other Members, I have visited my local delivery offices. The staff do an incredible job, but they are under-resourced and there just are not enough of them. Royal Mail continues to fall short under both its original and renegotiated universal service obligation. Even with the lowered targets, performance is well below the standard. I welcome the road map to rebuild the targets, but there are still serious structural concerns about that. We must make sure that these regulatory and service improvements are delivered without delay so we can make sure that our constituents are not disconnected from their communities, missing their hospital appointments, or unable to meet important bills.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for the Future of Work (Kate Dearden)]

Good afternoon, Ms Lewell; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) on securing this debate about the performance of Royal Mail. She clearly outlined the issues in her constituency. She has heard directly from constituents about the inadequate service, and I thank her for bringing that to the Chamber, as I thank other colleagues for doing the same. This is not the first debate on Royal Mail in the House, but it is my first debate as the Minister responsible, and it is a pleasure to respond to it. I take this part of my brief extremely seriously, and I hear the challenges we are working through loud and clear.

Royal Mail should be a cornerstone of our national infrastructure, serving every address in the UK under its universal service obligation. As we have heard, people and businesses continue to rely on its services every single day, and posties are such valued members of the communities they serve. Royal Mail is an independent business, and the Government are not involved in its day-to-day operations or resolving specific service issues, but patience with its performance is wearing thin. Colleagues will have heard that loud and clear from the Prime Minister at the Dispatch Box earlier this afternoon. Customers have every right to expect better.

Royal Mail must do more to restore confidence in its service. That is why I was frank in my meeting with the chief executive of Royal Mail last month, and will continue to be so for as long as necessary. We are clear that the service has been unacceptable for too long and that the pace of improvement must increase quickly. Although letter volumes have fallen from 20 billion items per year in the mid-2000s to 6.5 billion in 2025, the number of addresses served by the universal postal service has continued to grow, and we should reflect on that.

[Catherine Fookes]

I want to raise the issue of the prioritisation of parcels. As the Minister says, the volume of letters may have gone down, but the overall volume of items to deliver has not. She will be as worried as me that the number of people working in Royal Mail has reduced significantly, and many people are leaving because of low morale. What can she do to make Ofcom do more in this situation—for example, spot checks? Fines are obviously not working.

[Kate Dearden]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising those important points. I will shortly turn to the work we are doing with Ofcom and the engagement I have had with it so far.

Postal services remain absolutely essential, delivering everything from medical letters to financial information and birthday and greeting cards from loved ones—as well as, soon, Christmas cards. At the same time, the rapid increase from e-commerce over recent years has transformed the postal sector. Parcel volumes for 2025-26 reached 1.44 billion—a 7% increase from ’24-25. I am conscious that, with Christmas coming up soon, Royal Mail will be entering its busiest period of the year, as we have heard from colleagues. It is vital that it delivers a reliable service for its customers.

Royal Mail is an independent business, so responsibility for managing delivery operations, workforce deployment and local performance rests with its management, and it is best placed to investigate localised problems. However, I am all too aware that customers across the country continue to be let down by Royal Mail’s poor service. Many hon. Members receive correspondence from constituents highlighting their concerns and frustrations about Royal Mail’s performance, and colleagues have raised them today, as I have, too.