Royal Mail: Performance
Debate between Charlie Maynard and Emma Lewell(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing this fantastic debate on an important issue, on which she spoke so well. I also thank her for shouting out the work of the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee, of which I am a member, and of our Chair; let us see what November brings on that question.
The turnover rate of new Royal Mail employees is extremely high, and the work practices are incredibly harsh and getting harsher. We rely so much on our local posties to serve and help us, and it is really depressing to see how they are treated. My local postie, Tony, has just taken redundancy after years and years of work. It is hard not to feel that he was pushed out by being given a new round. It eminently did not suit, and Royal Mail knew that. That is happening in Witney and in other areas up and down the country. It is harsh and cruel. The numbers of people losing their jobs every week are not by accident, but by design.
Our Select Committee’s investigation into Royal Mail’s letter delivery service noted that only 74.9% of first-class mail has been delivered on time so far this year, against a target of 93%. That translates into approximately 126 million first-class letters arriving late over the year. At present, missing targets is cheaper than meeting them. Fines totalled about £37 million over the last three years, while first class reached only 75.7% next-day delivery, against a 93% target. That is a real problem. If Royal Mail just takes the fines, that does not help anybody.
The way to fix that problem is by focusing on two things that the owner values most: stamp price rises and taking cash out of the Royal Mail business. Here are some ideas on how we could achieve that. First, as others have mentioned, there should be no stamp price rises until targets are met. We have to get that link absolutely firm. That hits revenue directly and will make them pay attention. Secondly, Royal Mail’s cash should be ringfenced: no dividends, inter-group loans or management fees to the parent company while targets are missed, as Ofwat can do with water companies. That would stop letters subsidising parcels.
Thirdly, fines should be escalated, linked to turnover and paid into service improvement when we receive them. Fourthly, there should be automatic compensation for customers when mail is late, as there is with delay and repay. Fifthly, there should be no executive bonuses—none—while targets are missed. Sixthly, we need transparency: performance by postcode area, letters and parcels shown separately, and staffing levels published. That is absolutely critical. They hide behind this fug about how they lack the data. We need it at a granular level so that we can see what is going on where. Finally, there should be—
Thames Water: Government Support
Debate between Charlie Maynard and Emma Lewell(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Charlie Maynard
None of the 60 amendments in the Commons, or however many there were, was accepted. The rejected proposals included putting flow meters on the outflows of sewage treatment works, which is sort of logical; establishing targets to reduce pollution over time, using existing benchmarks of hours of spilled sewage; making sewage treatment works’ calculations more transparent; and bringing environmental experts and consumer representatives on to water boards.
The Labour Government are now allowing a public utility company to line the pockets of bankers and hedge funds at the expense of bill payers. As someone said in the Financial Times this week,
“with water, it’s a total monopoly and a total shambles. A shambopoly if you will”.
The Government’s support for Thames Water essentially amounts to unconditional support for the company’s creditors, at a direct and massive cost to its customers.
What do we need to do instead? First, we need to put the company out of its financial misery and put it into special administration. We should allow its debt to be massively written down to something like three times the cash flow or thereabouts. If the debt is reduced, the company will have a sufficiently strong balance sheet to allow it to invest in the infrastructure we desperately need and to spend our bill payments on fixing treatment works and pipe networks, rather than paying interest. We should allow water companies coming out of special administration to be mutually owned by their customers and professionally managed. We should set pollution baselines and pollution reduction targets and get serious about putting transparency targets and technology to work to clean up our rivers.
Special administration is clearly the most logical option at the moment, but I believe that the Government are shying away from it because of threats of legal action against them, phantasmagorical scenarios of financial Armageddon, or both. Please do not let Thames Water’s lobbyists, including Ruth Kelly, the ex-Labour Minister who is now chair of Water UK, to scaremonger you out of taking the action that 16 million consumers—your electorate—need. Those scenarios are patently not true, and it is best to ask Thames Water about that. As per page 92 of the independent expert report from Thames Water’s adviser, Teneo, the net cost to the Treasury of taking the company into special administration, even in the worst-case scenario, is zero—please look it up.
Instead, we now have this bizarre situation whereby a Labour Government are cheerleading the American hedge funds and private equity funds taking over our largest water company and making a massive profit out of its customers. What goes for Thames Water will very likely go for the rest of the sector, so the signal that you and your Government are sending the sector—
Emma Lewell (in the Chair)
Order. I do not wish to spoil the hon. Gentleman’s flow, but we use the same conventions in Westminster Hall as in the main Chamber. You should not use the words “you” or “your” unless you are referring to me.
Charlie Maynard
Many apologies to you, Ms Lewell, and to the Minister.
The signal that the Minister and the Government are sending to this and other regulated sectors is simply terrible. All that customers in my Witney constituency and across the whole catchment really want at this point is reliable, affordable, clean water to our homes. We want local rivers and lakes not to have sewage poured into them on a near-daily basis. We want a Government who are serious about putting the interests of customers and our rivers before the interests of hedge funds and private equity funds. Please stop letting us down.