Delivery Charges in Highlands and Islands

Christina Rees Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

We do not have anyone participating under the hybrid arrangements today, so Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and before they leave the room.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered delivery charges in Highlands and Islands.

It is indeed a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. Like many before me, I represent a part of the world that suffers from delivery charges and surcharges, misleading delivery ads, and a general feeling that we are always being forgotten about and simply punished for our post code.

In my short time in this place, I have discovered that it is customary to show off some statistical knowledge, so please bear with me and allow me to put this on the record. People living in the Highland Council area pay the highest average price for large parcel deliveries. Compared with other general regions of Scotland, the highlands and islands pay the highest average price at every parcel size and have the lowest delivery availability probability—that is, parcels that they will not get. To be precise, my constituents pay, on average, £14.67 more than people in the south of Scotland for a large parcel. For a small parcel, they pay about £5 more. The delivery prices we pay in the highlands and islands are 20% higher than those paid by my friends in Glasgow.

That is enough of statistics. The other day, my constituent Graham, a brave man who served Queen and country for long enough, came to see me about a teensy little parcel containing two tiny batteries that he had nearly ordered online. When he saw that it was going to cost him £10.95 for them to be delivered to the highlands, as opposed to £4.95 for the rest of the UK, he quite understandably decided not to place the order.

The Minister will be familiar with an organisation called Resolver, which looks at the problems uppermost in people’s minds. It has confirmed to me that in the UK, delivery charge rip offs—I call them that—are the second biggest irritation people complain about, behind online shopping. While the debate is primarily about the particular challenge we face in the highlands and islands, I put it to the Minister that the standards and regulations surrounding the delivery service in the UK are not doing anyone a huge amount of justice and I suggest that people across our four nations are pretty cross about their experiences. I do not believe that any of us can ignore that.

To set an historical context, I can say that it was not always like that. On 9 January 1840, the penny post was introduced. That world-beating innovation meant that a letter that arrived anywhere in the UK—from the Shetland Islands to Cornwall via Kinlochbervie or Durness or Inverness to London—did so for precisely one penny. Back then, no one was disadvantaged because of where they lived, and it is wonderful that the same was true of a parcel. Okay, a heavier parcel cost more than a lighter, but it did not matter where it was coming from or going to. There was a flat and fair rate, regardless of where people lived.

The batteries of my constituent, the brave soldier Graham, are the perfect example of an unfair extra charge being levied on people simply because of where they live. I use it because that sort of example strikes a chord in people’s mind. How very different is today’s ethos from the higher-minded ethos that led our Victorian forebears to introduce the penny post. Quite simply, the present situation stinks, and I must admit—forgive my language—I am sick and tired of going on about it.

There seems to be far too much buck passing and slopey shoulders, to use a good Scottish expression. The Scottish Government always say that delivery charges are reserved to Westminster and that while, yes, it is regrettable—and they wave a finger or two about it—it is up to Westminster to sort it out. Then, at the drop of a postman’s hat, Westminster is only too keen to burble on about market forces and say that it is up to the Scottish Government to improve transport links and reduce the price of getting stuff from A to B. There is some truth in that, but it makes me wonder how on earth people ever got the Penny Post going in 1840, long before the transport infrastructure we have today, but do it they did. That is a matter of fact and historical importance.

Amid the buck passing, we are where we are today, with whopping great charges that people cannot afford, particularly during the covid pandemic, when we are relying heavily on online orders. What is to be done? Let me make some suggestions. I believe that both Governments must, to coin a phrase, extract digits, as the late Duke of Edinburgh might have said. They must work together, stop bickering about the Union and who does what, and just sort the problem out.

Secondly, between us, we must fix our roads and properly invest in our transport infrastructure. Dodging potholes often doubles journey times and therefore costs where I live. I therefore gently say to the Minister that if, out of the goodness of his heart, he took a peek at my letter about the levelling-up fund, which has just been debated and has the Highland Council in the bottom tier for investment in Scotland, I would be awfully grateful.

That leads me to another, positive suggestion. Local delivery firms—we have several good examples in the highlands of Scotland—go up and down our roads all the time. They know where the bad potholes are and exactly where a certain Mrs McKay lives in a remote part of Sutherland. That local knowledge is crucial. Legislation should be put in place to oblige companies that do not use Royal Mail for delivery to use local firms. The national firms have a worryingly high level of lost deliveries, and I believe that going local will help solve the problem.

What are we going to do to punish repeat offenders who do not comply with the standards laid out by the Advertising Standards Authority? In all truth, a strongly worded letter will not hack it. Businesses, whether big online retailers or local couriers, should be keen to be transparent with customers about delivery charges and, where possible, enforce a flat-rate fee that does not discriminate by postcode.

There are innovative ideas that could be made to work. For some time, I have gone on about the campaign for community banking hubs, where different banks come together and offer customers their services out of the same room. A shared distribution centre of some sort in the highlands could be a possible solution, which the Minister might care to look at and discuss with businesses in my patch, in his constituency and in other parts of the UK.

Royal Mail rightly has a public service obligation by law. I believe that the law of the land should be changed so that the same standard of service is forced on all other delivery companies and the firms that seek to use them. Next year, Ofcom will review the regulatory framework for Royal Mail. I sincerely hope that the Minister and his colleagues in Government will consider extending Royal Mail’s “one price goes anywhere” rule to other companies.

As I discussed with the Minister before the debate, we last debated delivery charges in December 2020, thanks to the excellent initiative of the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross). He and I and many others have followed the issue on the Scottish Affairs Committee, which has had much to say about it. We have all engaged with Citizens Advice Scotland’s campaign on delivery charges over the past year. Yet, despite political support from all sides, we are still in the same boat. Right now, that boat does not seem to be going anywhere.

In a spirit of co-operation and helpfulness, I implore the Minister to discuss some of the proposals that I have outlined today with industry and perhaps come up with a plan of action. Deeply unfair delivery surcharges must be consigned to the dustbin of history. Nobody should be victimised simply because of where they live—not just in the highlands of Scotland, but in remote parts of England or Wales. It is simply wrong. In January 1840, the Penny Post set the gold standard and we should look to the high ethical standards of our forefathers. All our constituents will be greatly relieved if we can do something about this.