Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the desperate need for more engineers, but we have been making good progress. Since 2010, the number of people starting an engineering-related apprenticeship has gone up by 52%, and since 2013 the number of people starting an engineering degree has risen by 6.5 %. If we can get a better supply coming through the pipe, companies will be less inclined to poach from each other and will actually invest in developing the talent themselves through an apprenticeship.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

4. What steps he plans to take to safeguard the universal service obligation for the delivery of mail.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

The universal service obligation is not an optional extra—it is a fundamental duty enshrined in law and only Parliament could change that. In addition, it is the responsibility of the postal regulator, Ofcom, to ensure services are available throughout the UK at an affordable and uniform price, six days a week.

[Michael Connarty]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but is it not time that we looked at how Ofcom carries out its remit, possibly through a judicial review of that remit? Ofcom has been dragged reluctantly to review the actions of the cherry-pickers such as Whistl, which wants to pick mail up in the 8% of the UK’s geographical area that covers 42% of the mail thereby undermining the ability of Royal Mail to deliver, yet Ofcom attacked the standard of wages and conditions of the Royal Mail workers rather than deal with the problem of cherry-picking of the universal service obligation, which could be irrecoverably damaged.

[Jo Swinson]

There is agreement on both sides about the importance of the universal service obligation, and I do not think there is any evidence that the regulator is failing to fulfil its duty. It looked in detail at the case the Royal Mail put forward last summer and concluded that the market is operating as it should at the moment. It is committed to a further review later this year, and is also looking at the issue of access pricing. These issues are continually under consideration because the USO is so important.