Performance of Royal Mail

Hannah Spencer Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dave Robertson]

I will make some progress.

Royal Mail needs to own the true scale of the problem and the genuinely felt anger—that is essential. I look forward to discussing this with the Royal Mail CEO when he meets Labour MPs in Parliament next month. Labour Members do not want to stand up in this Chamber and attack Royal Mail, and we are certainly not attacking postal workers.

We recognise the scale of the challenge facing the industry. The number of letters sent in the UK has halved since the company was privatised, while the number of parcels has risen dramatically, fuelled in many cases by the growth in online shopping. Virtually all the parcel companies competing with Royal Mail, and oftentimes using its network, use a bogus self-employment model for their workers. That means Royal Mail is competing in a market where it has a fundamental disadvantage, and we should not want to encourage the model that these parcel companies are using—it is bad for workers, consumers and the taxpayer. Too many parcel companies pay a pittance for an unmanageable workload, exhausting drivers who cannot provide a quality service to customers as they race to complete rounds that are frankly impossible, and the public purse is ripped off in the process. While Royal Mail pays £650 million a year in national insurance contributions, many of these companies do not pay a penny.

The Government are now consulting on upgrading the rights of these parcel delivery drivers, and it is a start, but we need to go further. We need true parity between Royal Mail and its competitors, a level playing field where every company pays a fair price if it chooses to use the Royal Mail network. We need Royal Mail to take a long-term view of its workforce. New entrants get far worse terms, and that is fuelling a retention crisis with a staggering 400 posties leaving the company every week. It may help pinch a few pennies now, but if Royal Mail cannot keep its hard-working staff, the business is destined to fail.

I am sorry to say that we need to look again at the delivery model. Royal Mail is currently rolling out DM26, as it calls it, but our posties tell us the process is already chaotic, the workload is unmanageable and it is not a long-term solution. We need to heed the recommendation of the Business and Trade Committee to look at giving Ofcom stronger powers to regulate Royal Mail. It concerns me that the regulator has no solution beyond more fines for Royal Mail, which are clearly not working. We need to build on the Government’s “golden share” in Royal Mail and think about an ownership model for the future, with the voices of customers and workers right at its heart.

[Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) (Green)]

Last Friday, I spent the morning with the brilliant, dedicated postal workers at my local delivery office in Denton. Yet people across the constituency regularly tell me they are not receiving post, despite the staff clearly doing everything they can to keep the service going under immense pressure. Does the hon. Member agree that the privatisation of Royal Mail has clearly failed and that the Government must take urgent action to restore a reliable postal service that also treats workers fairly?

[Dave Robertson]

The hon. Member makes an important point. As we have heard from many Members today, it is not the posties; it is the system that they are being asked to work in. We need to do a number of things; there is no single answer that will solve this. We need a suite of different responses that lead to a proper outcome.

We need to think about bringing Royal Mail and the Post Office back together and look creatively at opportunities for profit, such as Post Office banking hubs. We need to look at the pay and bonuses of Royal Mail’s senior leadership. We are already doing that with the water companies; I do not see why it would be inappropriate in this case. When a private company delivers a public service, it must be held to the highest standards. Just like with those water companies, we cannot see bosses’ pay balloon while workers struggle and customers are let down.

I am not arrogant enough to stand here and say that I have all the answers. These ideas are all born out of consultation with organisations across the sector, and that is why it is so important that we get all the parties around the table to share those ideas so we can turn them into action. Two weeks ago, the Communication Workers Union wrote to the Secretary of State calling on him to hold an emergency summit to discuss Royal Mail’s future. I am glad to hear that the meeting will go ahead, and I ask the Minister that my hon. Friends the Members for Redditch and for Corby and East Northamptonshire and I are included in those discussions. Back-Bench MPs and our constituents must have a voice in them.

Royal Mail was founded over 500 years ago. It is a great British icon and an essential public service. We cannot and must not be the generation of politicians who allow it to fail.