Royal Mail: Performance

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

In 1884, parts of London would receive up to seven deliveries per day. By 1879, that had increased to 12 daily deliveries—can Members imagine? Today, in some parts of Sutton and Cheam or Worcester Park, we are lucky to see one delivery a week. That is 150 years of progress.

[Ian Byrne]

On the issue of dates, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the blame starts in 2013, when the coalition Government disastrously privatised this national treasure? Does he agree that Royal Mail needs to be taken back into public ownership?

[Luke Taylor]

I agree primarily with the point made by the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), who listed promises made by the Prime Minister. I would like to see the Prime Minister held to account a little more for his promises, which are undelivered—just like the mail in Sutton and Cheam.

Sutton residents in SM1, SM2 and SM3 cannot rely on the post any more. When Royal Mail fails to do its job properly, everyday people are left dealing with the fallout: prescriptions do not turn up, hospital letters land after the appointment has passed, Mother’s day cards arrive when the moment has gone and parking fines arrive after the grace period has expired.

However, the plural of anecdote is not data, so when I saw that this debate had been scheduled, I decided to get my own. Last Wednesday I sent out a batch of first-class letters from my constituency. In the letter I asked people to tell me when their delivery turned up and how long it had taken. The results: out of 23 replies so far, only 15 arrived the next working day, five took two days, and three took three days or more to arrive, with the latest arriving this morning. Yes, that is a small sample size—my credentials as an engineer will not let me fail to mention that—but Royal Mail’s target to have 93% of first-class mail arrive the next day was failed catastrophically, with my experiment placing its success rate closer to 65%.

When someone pays for first class, they are not making a complicated request: next-day delivery—that is the promise. Royal Mail may be a private company, but it delivers a public service, which is supposed to be overseen by Ofcom. A private company failing to deliver the public services it is mandated to do and getting away with it because of rubbish regulators—that covers at least 50% of the speeches delivered in this Chamber. It feels so familiar to me, having done it over and over. The Government are further eroding the confidence of our public by not showing improvements in any of these services.

Let me conclude with some questions for the Minister. Local elections are approaching in May, and the Government know that many people rely on postal votes to express their democratic right. The Minister has only to look across the Atlantic for recent experience of the undermining of faith in the electoral system when there is a lack of confidence that ballots will arrive on time and be counted. What assessment has been made of the impact of delays on local elections? What plans do the Government have to require Royal Mail to remove the shackles on local delivery offices to help them to clear rounds at this critical time? Will the Minister give a read-out of what firm actions and conclusions were agreed in his meeting with Ofcom last Wednesday, after his statement in the Chamber last week?

--- Later in debate ---

[Blair McDougall]

I will happily look at that. It is another example of a service that is simply not good enough.

As was mentioned, I recently met Royal Mail’s chief executive to press these issues directly. He was left in no doubt about the level of anger and concern across the House, and he was clear that the service is not where he wants it to be. He gave me a firm commitment that he will work towards restoring confidence in the service.

Where service has fallen short locally, whether due to staffing pressures, which the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) mentioned, operational challenges or external disruption, customers need to see sustained and structural improvement, not just short-term fixes. I understand that the hon. Member for Exmouth and Exeter East has met Royal Mail to discuss these issues. I have been advised that there are currently three vacancies in the Exmouth office, and I expect that Royal Mail will fill them to ensure there is an improvement in service locally.

Across the country, our constituents deserve visible improvements in reliability, and that expectation underpins every discussion that I and other Ministers have with Royal Mail. That is why, before the takeover of Royal Mail, we secured significant commitments from the new owners of the business, including a commitment to prevent dividend payments until quality of service improves.

As many hon. Members said, service improvement is also intimately linked to workers’ terms and conditions and the reform of Royal Mail’s operation. It is critical that the Royal Mail workers are on board with the operational changes, and that their experience informs that work. The Government continue to engage with EP Group on that; that is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State convened a joint meeting with the owners of EP Group and the CWU last month to help to unblock the outstanding issues. That engagement continues.

Hon. Members also referred to my detailed discussion with Ofcom last week about its expectations of Royal Mail and the steps it is taking to protect consumers. I highlighted hon. Members’ significant concerns about the delivery performance and the negative real-world impact that that is having on our constituents. It is fair to say that Ofcom has heard the strength of concerns, particularly those expressed in the Chamber last week. One outcome of that meeting is that Ofcom is clear, as it has been for some time, that Royal Mail is required to publish a detailed improvement plan that results in significant and continuous progress, and that it expects that one should appear within days of an agreement with the union. Where failures continue, Ofcom will not hesitate to act again, and last year’s £21 million fine was a clear signal.

We are in a context where, as has been said, the performance of many other parcel providers makes Royal Mail’s performance look positively glowing, and Ofcom is also looking at that wider context. None of us is blind to the wider context and the structural pressures. Letter volumes have halved over the past decade. As hon. Members have said, to ensure that the USO is sustainable, Ofcom has made changes to Royal Mail’s obligations.

However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) made clear, those changes and reforms cannot be imposed from the top down. Royal Mail must work constructively with its workforce and unions to ensure that operational changes translate into better services for customers across the country—a point also made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), and my hon. Friends the Members for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) and for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker).

There is wisdom in every sorting office; staff there understand how the business works. We have taken a close interest in the negotiations, the new operating model and workers’ conditions. I mentioned that the Secretary of State recently met with EP Group and the CWU; a further meeting is scheduled for tomorrow. I am hopeful that Royal Mail’s owners and the union will work together in the interests of Royal Mail’s employees, its customers and the business.

Several hon. Members raised concerns about the impact on postal votes. We have sought strong reassurances from Royal Mail on that issue. There have been meetings with the chief executive of the Electoral Commission to discuss plans for the upcoming elections, and a similar meeting is taking place in Scotland with Ministers there. My hon. Friend the Minister for Building Safety, Fire and Democracy is having a further meeting with Royal Mail to discuss postal votes, and we are leaving Royal Mail in no doubt about our expectations in that space.

[Luke Taylor]

It is encouraging to hear that the Government have sought reassurances, but nothing short of a fundamental revolution in my local delivery office will see postal votes delivered even within the weekend on which they are expected to arrive. Can the Minister detail what those reassurances involve? Do they require additional resource to be provided to the delivery offices so that they can pay for the inevitable overtime or additional staff on those dates? Similarly, when the postal votes need to get back to our town halls, what will be done to make sure that that end of the process also happens over a period of three or four weeks?

[Blair McDougall]

Obviously, part of ensuring that the obligations around postal votes are maintained is making sure that the resource is there on the ground to do that. Another part of it is also the prioritisation of postal votes within the service. There are existing structures for that, such as doing sweeps of boxes. I reiterate that the Government will continue to hold Royal Mail to account, will support strong and independent regulation by Ofcom and will press urgently for the improvements that customers rightly expect to see.