Royal Mail Takeover

Chris Law Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders]

I thank my hon. Friend for his questions and his service in the Royal Mail. Clearly, arrangements for those currently in the Royal Mail are a matter for the new owners once the deal goes through, and I am sure that that point will be discussed. He is right that the performance has not been good enough, and we are very pleased to have secured a number of commitments in the deal that were not previously in place.

[Chris Law (Dundee Central) (SNP)]

I welcome many parts of the statement, not least the part on quality assurance. I would like to know a little more about that because one issue in Dundee, which has the largest teaching hospital in Europe, is that appointments letters often arrive too late, which of course has an impact on the NHS.

I want to focus specifically on the question not yet answered, which is about jobs. In Scotland, 11,000 people are employed by the Royal Mail, and they will be listening today to find out what cast-iron assurances there will be for their jobs. Mr Křetínský recently completed a takeover of a French supermarket, promising in 2023, in the run-up to that deal, that there would be no job losses, but one year later there were plans to cut 3,000 jobs. Can the Minister be very specific today and tell us what cast-iron guarantees he has for the 11,000 people employed in Scotland and those who are employed elsewhere across the UK?

[Justin Madders]

I have no doubt that the Communication Workers Union and the Unite Communication Managers Association would not have spoken positively about the deals that they had struck had they not received sufficient guarantees about the workforce. As I said, the general secretary of the Communication Workers Union has been on the air today, speaking very positively about the commitments that he has received about not just job security but governance arrangements, and about workers having a “meaningful stake” in the success of the business moving forward. This is a really positive deal, and if the CWU is speaking positively about it, I think the hon. Member should be reassured.