Royal Mail: Universal Postal Service

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Lord draws me into a different area. We take the view that Scotland is much better off staying within the United Kingdom, so we do not see any threat to the universal service.

[Lord Skelmersdale (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that the universal postal service obligation works only because of cross-subsidy, with money saved by urban delivery paying for rural delivery? Is not the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, therefore, absolutely right to say that the biggest danger to all this is the cherry-picking to which he referred, which Ofcom has to consider very seriously?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Yes, and I know that the chief executive of Royal Mail made a few comments about this a few weeks ago. I should, however, reassure the House that Royal Mail delivers more than 99% of all letters and 37% of parcels. Other suppliers—that is, the incoming competition—directly deliver around 24 million items per year, compared to the 55 million items per day delivered by Royal Mail. So the competition is healthy but is not a threat.