Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure Royal Mail complies with its legal obligations on the delivery of post.

The Universal Service Obligation requires Royal Mail to deliver letters six days a week and parcels five days a week to every address in the UK at a uniform price.

Ofcom, as the independent regulator of postal services, is responsible for monitoring Royal Mail’s performance and ensuring that Royal Mail complies with its legal obligations. It sets Royal Mail enforceable targets to deliver a certain proportion of items on time each year. Ofcom takes compliance with its regulatory targets seriously and this involves conducting thorough investigations where failures have been identified.

In October, Ofcom fined Royal Mail £21 million for failing to meet its quality-of-service targets and has told Royal Mail it must urgently publish and deliver a credible plan that delivers major and continuous improvement.