Royal Mail and the Universal Service Obligation

David Linden Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ali. I congratulate the hon. Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) on securing the debate, and offer my support to the CWU in the dispute with Royal Mail. I was privileged to stand on picket lines with Craig Anderson, Councillor John Carson and many others at the Glasgow south-east delivery office in Fullarton Drive, as well as at the Gartcraig delivery office. During those visits to picket lines, I heard one resounding message from the workforce: no one wants the strike. No one wants to lose their pay, particularly during a cost of living crisis; and no one wants to risk their employment. Our posties are striking because they do not want a vital service to be destroyed and torn apart, and they want to be paid fairly for the work that they contribute to the service.

Let me speak directly to Simon Thompson at Royal Mail. His behaviour throughout the dispute has been appalling. In a Zoom interview, someone wrote his lines on a whiteboard behind the camera; that was symptomatic of the intransigence of the Royal Mail senior management team. My constituents did not go out on their doorsteps on a Thursday night to clap for key workers only for Mr Thompson to treat his staff like crap. He must up his game, and if he cannot, he must resign. It is increasingly clear that he is the biggest stumbling block to a resolution to the dispute.

The truth is that consecutive Governments in Westminster have overseen the degradation of our postal services. If this Conservative Government let the USO end, it may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It is widely known that Royal Mail is the designated provider of the universal postal service. It delivers six days a week to 30 million addresses on these islands, and one price goes anywhere. That seemingly unalienable fact is now under threat.

Royal Mail bosses have shamefully approached the British Government seeking to change that agreement. They have asked to move from the minimum six-day delivery service to a five-day delivery service for letters; Saturdays would be excluded. They say that is to protect the sustainability of the universal service. The SNP entirely recognises the importance of the USO, particularly for our rural communities in Scotland, which are so important. We will continue to fight for its protection.

We need to look more at the obscene profits from Royal Mail. While it plans to cut services and pay for postal workers, it pays out excessive sums to its shareholders. In May 2022, Royal Mail Group announced record-breaking profits of £758 million in 2021, £567 million of which was promptly paid out to shareholders. Only weeks later, Royal Mail announced significant losses, alleging it was losing over £1 million a day. Shortly after that, it approached the British Government requesting to move from a six-day to a five-day delivery obligation. The senior leadership of Royal Mail have also used their mismanagement of funds to justify scrapping up to 10,000 postal worker jobs from the service by 2023, while they continue to recruit and retain many thousands of agency staff.

Is it any surprise that CWU members have gone on strike? After all—some Ministers would do well to realise this—the right to withdraw one’s labour is one of the most fundamental human rights. It is a right that the British Government are now seeking to deny. Let us be clear: the CWU is in dispute with Royal Mail over unacceptable changes to terms and conditions and the abandonment of mutually agreed plans for modernisation, and in defence of the service that postal workers provide. There is also the proposed 2% pay increase. The CWU is also asking for an inquiry into the mismanagement of Royal Mail and how that will undermine the USO.

I do not think that Royal Mail senior management are listening. It appears that every time I tweet something about Royal Mail, a letter arrives within days disputing what I have said. Perhaps Royal Mail’s senior management team should spend less time monitoring my Twitter account, and more time at the negotiating table with our colleagues in the CWU.

The end of Royal Mail would exacerbate regional inequalities at a time when the British Government claim to be levelling up these islands. Royal Mail must be renationalised, and a commitment must be made to ensuring that the USO remains an unalienable fact of the postal service. To sum up in four words: stand by your post.