Covid-19 Pandemic: Royal Mail Services

Beth Winter Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Ali. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this important debate. Like her, I thank the staff at Royal Mail for their hard work in keeping communities connected throughout the covid pandemic. It was such a difficult time for everybody, but they continued to strive to work extremely hard, delivering parcels throughout my constituency of Cynon Valley.

As others have mentioned, I have a good connection with local postal workers, especially the trade union representatives. I make particular mention of Amarjite Singh, branch secretary for south-east Wales, and our local CWU rep, Jason Richards, who has been instrumental in the re-establishment of our trades council locally, which is fantastic.

Over the past two years, during periods of widespread lockdown or personal isolation, Royal Mail deliveries have been a lifeline and kept people supplied, including with the special delivery of coronavirus test kits. The postal workers were part of the key worker service provision that kept the country running, even when many of them suffered from covid; we have to thank them for their work.

As has been outlined, the difficulties in meeting delivery targets during the pandemic were understandable from the perspective of postal workers. Increased parcel volumes, social distancing requirements, and staff absences were all contributory factors. The suspension of Royal Mail’s regulatory targets as a designated universal service provider in 2020-21 was a welcome move. The service came in for much criticism and many complaints, which had a detrimental impact on the morale of staff, who—from my significant dealings with them—are absolutely committed to providing a high-quality service.

Three areas of concern have been brought to my attention that could assist in securing a return to the delivery of a world-class postal service if work were undertaken. The first relates to covid and staff sickness. While over the past two years employees battled with the impact of covid, Royal Mail discounted covid absences from the sickness absence procedure. With restrictions having lifted, that is no longer the case. Given the public-facing nature of the work involved and the close working environment, it is essential to ensure that in all instances, both staff and the public are adequately protected from the risks of covid. Although I understand Royal Mail’s policy is that staff are advised to remain at home if they have covid symptoms or test positive, I would be most concerned—as, I am sure, would other Members—if there were evidence that practice did not always follow that policy. Staff should never feel pressured to come into work in such circumstances. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on that.

The second area relates to steps to improve service provision, service quality and standards. It is welcome to hear that the CWU and Royal Mail recently set up a joint national quality of service steering group to monitor progress and address any barriers to achieving quality of service objectives. In my opinion, Royal Mail should be provided with more regulatory freedom to innovate, grow, and improve postal services. Allowing Royal Mail to introduce tracking facilities for a universal postal service is a key action that Ofcom could take to improve postal services. Ofcom is opposed to that, but the CWU argues that tracking in the universal service obligation would deliver better outcomes for customers and ensure that the USO evolves with user expectations. Further, it is essential that Royal Mail is reunited with the Post Office and returned to public ownership. An integrated postal, retail and delivery network would boost postal revenue potential and service quality, thereby benefiting customers.

The final area relates to job security, staffing levels, and terms and conditions. Recent media coverage reports that Royal Mail is planning to sack about 900 managers and bring in lower rates of pay in what Unite the union has said is another case of fire and rehire. The Royal Mail workforce is already depleted, having suffered in excess of 1,500 job cuts in 2021, leaving the service seriously understaffed and struggling to meet targets. A recent survey of Unite members revealed that the service depends on the willingness of members to undertake unpaid work, with members readily going without lunch breaks, working unpaid at weekends and even forgoing annual leave to provide the quality service that those workers want to provide to constituents.

Unite the union claims that job cuts are driven by shareholder greed—a view I share—despite the service having returned a record £311 million in profits, and that the business’s real plan is to eventually cut the six-day delivery service altogether and move to a three-day service model, as is the case in European countries such as Denmark. Sharon Graham has called on Royal Mail to step back from making any cuts. In her words:

“Royal Mail has no excuse for announcing these job cuts, especially at the same time as introducing ‘new’ bands on lower pay. That is just ‘fire and rehire’. They are not even losing money. Royal Mail’s private shareholders are doing very nicely…This is shameless boardroom greed looking to ruin a great UK name and a 500-year-old essential service.”

In this cost of living crisis, it would be remiss of me not to say that staff deserve an inflation-proof pay rise. CWU workers in Wales have relayed to me their concerns about the pay discussions in Royal Mail and have written to the Royal Mail Group chief executive in February and, following the lack of response, published an open letter to bring the union’s concerns into the open. The union made it clear that it found the delay in announcing the pay offer unacceptable given the cost of living crisis, and that the company is undermining trust.

Local CWU members are very aware that the business recently paid dividends to its shareholders to the tune of £400 million. Indeed, as of January 2022, a total of £1,725 million had been paid out in dividends to Royal Mail shareholders since privatisation by the Conservative-Lib Dem Government in 2013. I therefore fully support the CWU’s calls for Royal Mail to be renationalised, which would allow for the money paid in dividends to shareholders to be reinvested in the business to retain staff, fund a significant pay rise, which the staff deserve, support growth and improve service quality.

I would like to know whether the Minister supports the call for an inflation-proof pay rise for postal workers, and indeed all key workers. That is, I believe, the right and necessary thing to do in this current crisis. Diolch yn fawr.