Royal Mail: Performance

Debate between Chris Ward and James Naish

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Chris Ward (Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing this debate. I want first to put on the record my appreciation for Royal Mail staff, particularly those I met on Monday at the delivery office in Rottingdean in my constituency, where I saw how hard they are working to improve the local service.

Of course, we all want Royal Mail to succeed, because it is a universal postal service and something we all rely on. It is a truly national service and a source of good, unionised jobs. We should celebrate that more—frankly, we should do more to encourage other providers in the sector to match those employment standards and expectations. But we also have to ask how we can better support Royal Mail staff to do the job we all need them to do, and how our constituents can be sure that they will receive the service they rely on, because right now problems with Royal Mail is the one issue I get the most emails about—I was going to say letters, but it is actually emails.

I will give two quick examples. One constituent from Woodingdean in my constituency told me that they had no deliveries from 1 to 16 August this year, 29 pieces of mail on 17 August, no deliveries from 18 to 28 August, and 13 items of mail delivered on 29 August. When I raised this directly with Royal Mail locally, I was told:

“there are no current issues with the delivery of mail to your constituent’s address…deliveries are taking place six days a week”.

Frankly, it is hard to know how to relay that to constituents.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

A constituent in West Bridgford in my constituency showed me a letter they had received from TV Times, telling them that because Royal Mail had become so unreliable it was going to use a third party to deliver the magazine separately, to make sure they got it on time. Does that not say everything about the reliability of Royal Mail?

[Chris Ward]

I am afraid it does. As my hon. Friend’s intervention shows, some constituents are now routinely missing letters—letters informing them of NHS appointments, legal affairs, fines and so on. One even contacted me on Saturday to say that he had only just received his Labour party conference pass, some four weeks late. Members might think that a blessing in disguise and that we should be praising Royal Mail, but he was not too pleased.

We are now in a cycle of despair with Royal Mail, where constituents report unacceptable delays all the time and MPs from across the House come here to raise them. Successive Governments will say how terrible it all is and demand that Ofcom acts and Royal Mail improves, but Ofcom does not have the powers it needs and keeps fining Royal Mail for failure, despite the fact that Royal Mail cannot make a profit anyway. Royal Mail has no chance of hitting its legally mandated targets and no hope of competing on a level playing field, because operators in the same sector simply do not have the same regulatory or employment standards that we ask of Royal Mail.

The result is rising anger on all sides, a loss of faith in our national delivery service and, frankly, a belief that we cannot even get the post to run on time in this country. I know that the Minister cares deeply about the issue and is working hard on it, so I urge her to break that cycle: look at what more we can do in Parliament to level the playing field for Royal Mail, empower the regulator more, and give Royal Mail staff the opportunity they need to improve and modernise the service. If we do that in this Parliament—there is a majority for it and cross-party support—then we can finally get our national postal service back on track and serving our constituents as it should be.

Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address Motion

Debate between Chris Ward and James Naish

Thursday 12th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ward]

As I said in the House last week in response to a question from the former Attorney General, full resourcing will be given to the ISC to do that. I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point about how we work that through between the two teams. That is being worked out with the ISC and the Cabinet Office at the moment, and I am confident that it can be resolved. He pointed to the political composition of the ISC. I think it is fair to say that no Members of this House would want to imply that the ISC is not impartial, responsible and entirely qualified to do this. It was important that the ISC was included in last week’s motion, and it is important to have that on the record.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

I am pleased that the Prime Minister has recognised that he must do more to strengthen standards in public life, including by enhancing vetting for political appointments and providing a broader review of the lobbying system. Would the Minister care to explain a bit more about how the Government are planning to address the lobbying of MPs and public officials?

[Chris Ward]

The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister set that out to the House on Monday, and we will come forward with further detail soon. This is an important part of restoring trust, and it cannot just be about reacting to the specifics of the Mandelson revelations. There needs to be much broader consideration of lobbying and the transparency of our politics. This should not be a political point, because it is about all Governments and all parties at different times, but our politics is at a low point of public trust at the moment, and we need to rebuild it.

Nolan Principles

Debate between Chris Ward and James Naish

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ward]

The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point, particularly for Members of this House, but also across public services more broadly. We have seen some very worrying reports of that recently in our core public services. If it is okay with him, I will discuss it with my colleagues in the Government Equalities Office to see what we can do and write back to him. He raises a good point.

As I was saying, I do not accept the fatalism set out by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, but where there are failings and public servants do not meet high standards, there needs to be swift and effective accountability. It is, of course, the responsibility of this Government and these Ministers—indeed all Governments, politicians and public servants—to strive to reflect what Lord Nolan set out 30 years ago. As I have said, the Government are taking steps to achieve that. I am the first to accept that we are not there yet, but we are making progress.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

At the end of August in Nottinghamshire, where I am a Member of Parliament, the leader of the county council banned the Nottingham Post and Nottinghamshire Live from speaking to him and his local authority, representing a dangerous moment where local accountability was not being adequately recognised. Will the Minister speak to his colleagues about how we can bolster local journalism and the role it plays in the accountability part of the Nolan principles?

[Chris Ward]

Absolutely. On local government, I will just reiterate that the Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary set out important powers earlier in the week to try to improve standards and to hold people to account. Hopefully that will help.