Royal Mail: Performance

Emma Lewell Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sorcha Eastwood]

That is a real question that we must seriously investigate. I am sure that other right hon. and hon. Members across the House would attest to wanting further robust mechanisms to challenge many of Ofcom’s other remits successfully. I wonder whether the Minister will commit today to consult on changing Ofcom’s powers.

Finally, I turn to the bigger picture. As we have heard from right hon. and hon. Members in the debate, this issue is about much more than just simply Royal Mail and letters. For the first time in its 500-year history, Royal Mail is owned by an overseas company—the highly profitable EP Group. The Government approved the takeover, but serious questions remain about our sovereignty. Royal Mail is a British institution. It delivers to every address in the UK for the same price, whether to a farm in Northern Ireland, a flat in Cardiff or a college in Scotland. It is as much critical infrastructure as any road or cable. When it was privatised in 2013, we were promised better service and investment. Instead, we have had six years of missed targets. A company unanswerable to its owners will always be tempted to favour its most profitable work. The universal service obligation is meant to guard against that.

Fines have not been enough. Other countries subsidise their postal providers or bring them into public ownership, as Ofcom notes. I go further here than the Committee has, but I believe it is time to review Royal Mail’s ownership and governance, so that the universal service obligation is protected in the public interest.

I ask the House: who do we want to be as a society? Do we want to be a country that can no longer promise that a card will reach a grieving daughter, or a hospital letter will reach a patient? Or do we want to be a country that treats the post as what it has always been—a promise to every address— and protects it?

As I said earlier, this is about more than just letters. What are we as a country, if we can no longer rely upon a service that is nearly as old as time itself? Given current geopolitical instability, it would also be remiss of me not to put on the record the grave concerns that I have about critical national infrastructure being owned overseas, rather than in our own country.

For my final requests, I am asking the Government for four things. First, will the Government consult on changing Ofcom’s powers, if service has not improved by the Committee’s 22 November deadline? Secondly, will the Government consider linking stamp prices to delivery performance, as Citizens Advice has proposed? Thirdly, what guarantees do we have for Christmas deliveries this year? Fourthly, and finally, will the Government review Royal Mail’s ownership model, to protect the universal service for the long term?

The public hold up their end of the bargain: they buy the stamps, post letters in time and wait. The system is letting them down. My constituents want to trust the post again. The Government, Ofcom and Royal Mail all have the power to put that right, and this Christmas is the time to show it.

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

With a time limit of three and a half minutes, I call Anneliese Dodds.

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[Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing this fantastic debate on an important issue, on which she spoke so well. I also thank her for shouting out the work of the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee, of which I am a member, and of our Chair; let us see what November brings on that question.

The turnover rate of new Royal Mail employees is extremely high, and the work practices are incredibly harsh and getting harsher. We rely so much on our local posties to serve and help us, and it is really depressing to see how they are treated. My local postie, Tony, has just taken redundancy after years and years of work. It is hard not to feel that he was pushed out by being given a new round. It eminently did not suit, and Royal Mail knew that. That is happening in Witney and in other areas up and down the country. It is harsh and cruel. The numbers of people losing their jobs every week are not by accident, but by design.

Our Select Committee’s investigation into Royal Mail’s letter delivery service noted that only 74.9% of first-class mail has been delivered on time so far this year, against a target of 93%. That translates into approximately 126 million first-class letters arriving late over the year. At present, missing targets is cheaper than meeting them. Fines totalled about £37 million over the last three years, while first class reached only 75.7% next-day delivery, against a 93% target. That is a real problem. If Royal Mail just takes the fines, that does not help anybody.

The way to fix that problem is by focusing on two things that the owner values most: stamp price rises and taking cash out of the Royal Mail business. Here are some ideas on how we could achieve that. First, as others have mentioned, there should be no stamp price rises until targets are met. We have to get that link absolutely firm. That hits revenue directly and will make them pay attention. Secondly, Royal Mail’s cash should be ringfenced: no dividends, inter-group loans or management fees to the parent company while targets are missed, as Ofwat can do with water companies. That would stop letters subsidising parcels.

Thirdly, fines should be escalated, linked to turnover and paid into service improvement when we receive them. Fourthly, there should be automatic compensation for customers when mail is late, as there is with delay and repay. Fifthly, there should be no executive bonuses—none—while targets are missed. Sixthly, we need transparency: performance by postcode area, letters and parcels shown separately, and staffing levels published. That is absolutely critical. They hide behind this fug about how they lack the data. We need it at a granular level so that we can see what is going on where. Finally, there should be—

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

Order. Time is up.

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[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)]

Meur ras, Ms Lewell. It is an honour to serve under your chairship. I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing this debate and for her excellent speech.

The performance of Royal Mail in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, in the south-west of Cornwall, has been simply woeful. Constituents regularly tell me that they have gone weeks without post and, like other hon. Members’ constituents, have received a large backlog all at once.

Sharon from Hayle had waited a year for an operation when she received a call from the hospital asking whether she intended to attend. The appointment letter, together with the swabs required pre surgery, had never arrived. Thankfully, the arrangements were later confirmed by phone and email, but the letter itself was delivered three days after the operation had taken place. Another constituent was sent a letter for a hospital appointment 19 days after it was scheduled. Such delays risk causing vulnerable people to miss essential treatment, and place a burden on our overstretched NHS.

In Cornwall, our remote coastal geography and patchy digital connectivity—to say the least—mean that many of us still rely heavily on the universal postal service, but I worry that the situation will only get worse. In recent weeks, several Royal Mail workers have contacted me with concerns about the new delivery model 26. They report unmanageable workloads, experienced workers leaving, morale at rock bottom and substantial volumes of mail sitting undelivered. Three workers completing four rounds does not sound a credible way to improve reliability and restore public trust in Royal Mail. I echo the points made: the issue is not one of posties; it is one of management. Nor should Royal Mail continue to respond, if at all, to our constituents with template responses or hide behind impossible-to-navigate AI chatbots, while the reality on the ground slips further behind.

I therefore ask the Minister what discussions the Government have had with Royal Mail about DM26, and what action will be taken to ensure my constituents receive a postal service worthy of the word “royal”. If Royal Mail is going to treat this House and elected Members with such arrogance, the Government must take direct, firm and urgent action.

[Emma Lewell (in the Chair)]

The time limit is now three minutes.