Royal Mail

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh, and to contribute to this debate, which the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) was so effective in securing.

It is also a pleasure to follow my excellent colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes). Like her, I have carried out a number of visits to staff in the delivery and sorting offices in my constituency, and I have enormous respect and gratitude for the work that is being done to keep things going, particularly during covid, by staff, managers and everyone else at Royal Mail.

However, there are a number of concerns that I, too, have received correspondence about. In total, 130 constituents have written to me to report issues, particularly around the second and third waves of covid in the winter of 2020-21, and especially in the N4 and N8 postcode areas. As we have heard this afternoon, there have been a number of discrepancies that cannot be fully accounted for by the pandemic alone. For example, we have seen that the letter and parcel delivery that was supporting people who were shielding often fell short of what we would have expected. The delivery of invitation letters to the first few cohorts of people eligible for the vaccine was also reliant on the postal service and it sometimes failed. That highlights why the deterioration in services experienced in our constituencies is so frustrating, painful and potentially dangerous for residents.

My constituents have reported severe consequences resulting from the deterioration in Royal Mail services, such as fees for late payment of utility bills, when they had not received the original letter bills; being fined for non-payment of penalty charge notices, when they had not yet received the original letter informing them of the PCN being issued; and late receipt of personal identity, medical and legal documents having an impact on their ability to submit in-time applications—for example, for self-assessed tax registration or to gain access to medical treatment sooner. There have also been issues with passport renewal services, legal appeals and delayed receipt of consumer goods and gifts, which was particularly upsetting around Christmas time, when we were separated from family members. There has also been anxiety about financial security because newly issued credit and debit cards went missing in the post. I hope that this situation can be rectified.

I would also be grateful if, in summing up, the Minister could assist my constituents and me with a particular issue. The delivery office opposite Hornsey railway station was closed during the coalition years. There has been an ongoing campaign, led by myself and our local ward councillors, to have it reopened. The original building is no longer available, but there must be a suitable building available somewhere locally. I know that there are a number of empty shops on the high street in Hornsey, which could be perfectly appropriate for a delivery office. It is much more efficient, from an energy point of view, to have people popping into a delivery office than endless parcel vans coming to people’s doors.

Now that Royal Mail’s finances have improved—indeed, it is enjoying record-breaking profits; I believe they have trebled—I also want to press the Minister for increased numbers of apprentices and staff to be taken on and paid competitive rates, so that we can make good on what has been a pretty dismal record in the last 15 months. I would also like to see increased training and support for staff, and of course, on weekends, an increase in the number of people delivering mail. We still have a youth unemployment problem in Hornsey and Wood Green, so I want young people to have job opportunities in the Royal Mail, which is a good employer normally. I hope that management will grab that issue with both hands.

I conclude simply by reminding the Minister of the specific request from my constituency, given that it has been particularly badly affected by the situation I described. We would like to see the return of a delivery office in the N8 area so that the Royal Mail can make good on its commitments and obligations. I would also be pleased to hear what further action can be taken by MPs and our staff when things go wrong, because I am concerned that our regulatory framework seems a mismatch for what is quite a desperate situation for many of our constituents?