Future of Postal Services Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Sarah Green
Main Page: Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat - Chesham and Amersham)Department Debates - View all Sarah Green's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Future of Postal Services
Sarah Green Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali) for securing the debate. For years, Royal Mail has repeatedly fallen short of several of the performance targets that it is required to hit. The most recent quality of service report reveals that, in the second quarter of 2022, it missed its first class USO by a staggering 20%. As Matthew Upton, the Director of Policy at Citizens Advice has said:
“Ofcom is letting Royal Mail off the hook for substantial mail delays. Failure to hit a single quarterly target for over two years is simply unacceptable.”
While Royal Mail’s year-end quality of service reports chart some improvement, I am not satisfied with this. Royal Mail was closer to hitting several of its targets last year, but it still consistently failed to hit key delivery targets in every quarter since the emergency regulatory period for covid came to an end. Ofcom must provide us with reassurance that unless there is substantial improvement, it will take enforcement action. After all, what do targets really mean if nobody is ensuring that they are being met?