Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to Royal Mail's announcement on the rise of the cost of first class stamps, what steps her Department is taking to ensure Ofcom is fulfilling its responsibility to ensure all USO postal products are affordable for all consumers.

The Government’s objective continues to be ensuring the provision of a sustainable, accessible and affordable universal postal service. However, as the independent regulator of postal services, regulatory decisions are a matter for Ofcom in which Government is not involved.

Ofcom’s regulatory framework imposes prices controls, ‘safeguard caps’, on certain second-class products to ensure a basic universal service is available to all at affordable prices. Ofcom will conduct a public consultation in 2023-24 to inform a review of the safeguard caps that should apply from April 2024.