Covid-19 Pandemic: Royal Mail Services

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Royal Mail services and the covid-19 pandemic.

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Ms Ali. This is the third debate that I have secured on the performance of Royal Mail in as many years. I have done so because, as a company, Royal Mail is continuing to fail residents and businesses in my constituency and in many places across the country.

Royal Mail provides a vital frontline service. Throughout the covid-19 pandemic, postal workers continued to go to work to deliver letters and parcels, and, in addition to their core responsibilities, often provided vital contact for vulnerable residents living on their own during lockdown. I pay tribute to their bravery, dedication and service. I regularly meet postal workers in my constituency and representatives from their union, the Communication Workers Union. I am absolutely clear that the issue at Royal Mail is a failure of management and that the problems are structural.

The problems with Royal Mail first came to prominence in my constituency in 2017 when it announced plans to close two delivery offices in my constituency: the SE22 delivery office on Silvester Road and the SE27 delivery office on Windsor Grove. It was clear to local residents and elected representatives that the closures would be a disaster for postal delivery services. Following a large campaign, Royal Mail decided not to close the SE27 delivery office, but it pressed ahead with the closure of the SE22 office in autumn 2018, shortly before Christmas.

The closure of the SE22 delivery office heralded a disastrous deterioration in the reliability of postal services for local residents in the SE22 area. The delivery office was merged with the SE15 delivery office in Peckham, which is too small to cope with the volume of parcels for two postcode areas. It is located a considerable distance from the furthest parts of SE22 and the area has challenging topography. When the office initially closed, it is no exaggeration to say that services collapsed, with many streets not receiving postal deliveries for days or weeks at a time and customers having to queue for hours to pick up parcels. The situation was completely chaotic.

Following the initial Christmas peak in 2018, services improved somewhat, but ever since that time it has been clear that Royal Mail has no resilience in the SE15 delivery office and can maintain a satisfactory level of service only when all conditions are optimal. Whenever there are any increased pressures due to peak periods, staff sickness or adverse weather, the service in large parts of SE22 quickly becomes completely unreliable.

The consequences of poor and unreliable postal delivery services for my constituents have been severe. I have heard from constituents who have missed medical appointments or, perhaps even worse during the pandemic, turned up at hospital for appointments that had been cancelled. They have lost important legal documents and have had to attend court because they missed the deadline for paying speeding fines.

During the pandemic there have been many heart-rending stories that illustrate the important role that postal services still play in people’s lives, including children not receiving any birthday cards during lockdown, handmade gifts from grandparents for newborn babies not being delivered, and residents who have been relying on post from family and friends to fend off loneliness and isolation waiting weeks at a time for their post.

In addition, my constituency is home to the Mark Allen Group—a magazine publisher that produces 114 publications, including Farmers Weekly, which is delivered nationwide on Fridays. The publisher has highlighted the unreliability of postal delivery services in many parts of the country as a serious threat to the viability of its business. It has noticed significant subscription cancellations, which correspond with unreliable postal delivery services.

Magazine publishers are worth £3.74 billion to the UK economy and employ more than 55,000 people. The Mark Allen Group in my constituency supports hundreds of jobs in journalism, printing and distribution. It is reliant on Royal Mail for the sustainability of its business. It is no exaggeration to say that the Royal Mail failures are putting jobs at risk. Citizens Advice, the consumer advocate for the postal sector, also confirms that the kinds of failures seen in my constituency are common across the country. It estimates that 16.5 million customers were hit by letter delays in January 2021, and 15 million were left waiting for letters during the festive period 2021-22. It also highlights the rapidly increasing cost of Royal Mail services. The price of a first-class stamp has increased by almost 50% in just five years, leaving customers paying much more for a poorer service.

I have engaged extensively with Royal Mail, the CWU and Ofcom since 2017 about the problems in SE22, and during the covid-19 pandemic problems in other postcode areas in my constituency, especially SE19, SE24 and SE27. My engagement with Ofcom has been, frankly, extremely disappointing. There appeared to be very little interest in the severe problems affecting my constituents, and no meaningful action that Ofcom, as the regulator, was willing or able to take in response. It is clear to me that there are considerable problems with the regulatory framework that have made it impossible for Royal Mail to be held to account when its services fail.

I believe that five measures are urgently needed to put this situation right. There is currently no requirement on Royal Mail to undertake public consultation on a decision to close a delivery office, despite the obvious significant impact that a closure can have on a local community. In the case of SE22, every single concern that local residents raised about the closure has come to pass. Royal Mail sold the SE22 delivery office for £7 million. There was no requirement to reinvest any of the receipt in the provision of local services. I urge the Minister to ask Ofcom to introduce a new requirement for meaningful public consultation on delivery office closures, and to instigate an independent analysis of the impact on local services that must be submitted to Ofcom and signed off before a closure can take place. We will not accept further delivery office closures in Dulwich and West Norwood.

Royal Mail is required only to report quality of service data at the level of the first part of the postcode. That has consistently meant that the catastrophically poor performance in SE22 and other postcodes in my constituency has been masked by performance data across the wider SE postcode area, which covers a vast swathe of south-east London. In effect, that has made it impossible to secure any regulatory action for my constituents. I have made repeated requests over a number of years for Royal Mail to provide more granular performance data, and they have always been refused. That gives rise to concerns about transparency and accountability. I urge the Minister to ask Ofcom to require Royal Mail to report performance data at the level of local postcodes, so that regulatory action can be taken more easily on individual delivery offices when they fail.

The partial suspension of the universal service obligation during the pandemic effectively removed all regulatory levers from Ofcom in relation to Royal Mail. Across many streets in my constituency, residents have reported periods when post was not delivered for weeks at a time. When I raised those problems with Royal Mail, it systematically denied the extent of the problem, refused to acknowledge backlogs of mail sitting in delivery offices—that miraculously were cleared when I made a short-notice visit to at least one of the delivery offices in question—and denied the extent of the gaps in delivery.

I am completely clear that Royal Mail has regularly been in breach of the USO in my constituency, but there has been no action from Ofcom, leaving Royal Mail entirely unaccountable for the quality of its services. The Government must therefore require Ofcom to review the universal service obligation to ensure that meaningful regulatory action can always be taken when there are breaches and, in circumstances in which the USO is partially or fully suspended, that there is no vacuum of regulation.

Finally, it is unacceptable for the public to be asked to pay more for less, particularly at a time when the cost of living crisis is bearing down on so many people across the country. I ask the Minister to respond to the request from Citizens Advice and to ask Ofcom to carry out a full assessment of the affordability of postal products, in the light of the jump in first-class stamp prices. My constituents are utterly exasperated by the lack of action from Royal Mail, Ofcom and the Government in response to the failures of Royal Mail in my constituency. The privatisation of this vital public service by the Tories and the Lib Dems has failed. The Government must urgently get a grip.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. Two themes have run consistently through many of the contributions. The first is gratitude and appreciation for frontline postal delivery workers and acknowledgment of all that they have done during the pandemic, and I reiterate that once again. We are grateful to our postal workers up and down the country for the vital work they do.

The second theme is the frequent mismatch between the messages we all receive from Royal Mail as constituency MPs and the experiences of our constituents. I recognised, almost verbatim, the experience reported by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) of being told by Royal Mail that deliveries were being alternated every other day in her constituency, and yet residents were reporting that they were not receiving post for weeks at a time. That has absolutely been my experience. The problem is not the timeliness of the response from Royal Mail; it is that it simply does not chime with the experiences of our constituents. They have no reason to exaggerate or make up their experiences of the postal delivery services. If post is arriving, there is not a problem. Yet, time and again people report that there is a problem. I am grateful to the Minister for his continued engagement on this issue, and I am sure that, like Royal Mail managers in my constituency, he is sick of hearing from me about it, but we will not rest, because Royal Mail’s services are so important.

I am disappointed that the Minister did not address the data reporting issue, which is critical. Royal Mail cannot be held accountable for local delivery office failures, which matter so much in specific communities, if it has to report its performance data only at a very broad level. The same is true of national satisfaction survey reporting: hearing that 80% of customers are happy is no comfort if someone lives in SE22 when the SE22 delivery office is failing.

I urge the Minister to step back from the briefings he receives from Royal Mail and Ofcom, to look at what people across the country are saying about the quality of the services they receive and to think about the role Government can play in getting a grip on what I believe is a failing organisation and in making sure that Royal Mail continues to deliver the post, but does so with a reliability that such a vital service demands across the country.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Royal Mail services and the covid-19 pandemic.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The checkpoint will apply to all future licence rounds. Those projects already licensed are already accounted for in our projections for future oil and gas production. Projects such as Cambo are already licensed and are going through normal regulatory processes. Estimated emissions from all the existing licences are already accounted for in our forward projections.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

What plans his Department has to help support the growth of solar energy in the UK.

[The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

Solar is key to the Government’s strategy for low-cost decarbonisation of the energy sector, and we will need sustained growth in capacity over the next decade as we move to net zero. It already accounts for 28% of installed renewable capacity in the UK. Large-scale solar photovoltaic projects are eligible to compete in the next contracts for difference allocation round in December this year. The Government also support rooftop solar through the smart export guarantee and energy efficiency schemes.

[Helen Hayes]

Community energy is vitally important in delivering renewable energy and engaging communities in contributing to net zero, but the sector has suffered since the Government cancelled the urban community energy fund in 2016 and excluded it from the social investment tax relief in 2017. This evening I am meeting Sustainable Energy 24 in my constituency, which is working hard to deliver new solar installations and engage our local communities, despite the Government’s lack of support. Will the Minister commit to meaningful support for community energy?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

We are absolutely supportive of community energy. The £10 million rural community energy fund provides grant funding to help communities with the up-front costs of project development. We have also funded dedicated officers at five local energy hubs to provide one-to-one support. We intend to set out our future plans for community energy in the forthcoming net zero strategy.

Environment and Climate Change

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to Greta Thunberg and the school strikers, including those from my constituency, and to the protesters whom we saw outside Parliament last week for ensuring that climate change is once again at the top of the political agenda, where it must be. Under this Government and in this global context, their actions are necessary.

The Government have failed on climate change. Since 2010, a raft of policies and initiatives that were driving progress have been scrapped. Today, Conservative Members have called for action on energy efficiency, yet the Tory Government’s cancellation of the green homes scheme means that the retrofitting of insulation is 5% of its level in 2012. We should have been building on those initiatives to make further progress, not talking about the extent to which we have moved backwards.

In the very limited time that is available to me, I want to raise an issue that has not been mentioned so far today: fossil fuel divestment. Part of the system change that we need to see involves taking money out of dirty, damaging, exploitative fossil fuel extraction. We can do something about that here, in this place. Both my local councils, Lambeth and Southwark, have committed to divest their pension funds out of fossil fuels, yet our parliamentary pension funds remain invested in fossil fuels, despite 100 Members writing to the trustees last year calling on them to divest and remove our money from fossil fuels and invest it in sustainable industries. I call on all Members here to join that call.

We need the Government to act comprehensively at the scale required by an emergency. Climate change demands that it is the prism and the underpinning principle of all our political and economic decision making. We must act to address this emergency.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

1. What steps his Department has taken to ensure that solar power can compete on a level playing field with other energy generation technologies.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

18. What steps his Department has taken to ensure that solar power can compete on a level playing field with other energy generation technologies.

[The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)]

At a time when people think parliamentarians are engaged in some sort of slugfest, I commend the Opposition parties for perfect collaboration on this first question.

Solar is a UK success story, as I know all hon. Members will recognise. The feed-in tariff scheme, under which 80% of installations have been solar, has cost £5.9 billion to date in supporting those 830,000 installations. Prices have fallen over 80% since the introduction of the scheme, which is why we are amending it, as I set out in the smart export guarantee consultation, and I look forward to receiving the response of the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake).

[Claire Perry]

I completely agree that nobody should be exporting power to the grid for free, or indeed below zero as has happened in some other countries. The level at which that export tariff and the mechanism are set is a matter for consultation, and I look forward to the right hon. Gentleman’s points on that subject.

[Helen Hayes]

Industry surveys show that 30% to 40% of solar firms installing domestic systems are now contemplating closure, given the mess that the Minister’s Department has made of policies for smaller-scale renewables. The Government’s own figures show that deployment of solar PV was less than 300 MW last year, down 90% compared with 2015, and Ofgem’s targeted charging review now threatens even the few solar farms that have been built without subsidy. Will she now meet the Solar Trade Association and its colleagues as a matter of urgency to discuss this latest threat to a part of our energy market that is critical to delivering carbon reduction?

[Claire Perry]

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady about this being an important part of our energy market, which is why I am so proud that 99% of our solar installations have happened since a Conservative-led Government have been in power. I frequently meet the Solar Trade Association, which is always a pleasure. I encourage her to look beyond a regime of subsidy for delivering renewable energy, as the evidence of the numbers suggests that there are 2.3 GW of solar projects in the pipeline that already have or are awaiting planning permission and that could be delivered without subsidy. We are moving rapidly to a subsidy-free world for solar generation. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady shakes her head, but it is true. It is important that we do not equate subsidy with output, and with actually delivering the power we want.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

T5. Participants in multi-level marketing schemes, 75% of whom are women, sign up to the opportunity to earn income flexibly from home, often attracted by outlandish lifestyle claims made on social media. In reality many participants earn no income and many end up in debt. Will the Secretary of State introduce a requirement on MLMs to publish an independently audited annual statement of net average earnings that takes into account the cost of participating as well as income earned, and will he regulate the lifestyle claims made on social media to stop the exploitation of vulnerable people?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point, and I would be happy to meet her to discuss this. I am thinking back to the days when we used to go out and try to sell goods from various catalogues and I used to collect the money. That was exploitative then, and I suspect that it is exploitative now. Perhaps she and I should meet; I would be happy to discuss the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths]

The hon. Gentleman will know that that issue is the subject of an urgent question later on in the House. I would hate to spoil his fun, so I will leave it to others.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

9. What assessment he has made of the UK’s ability to meet its carbon reduction targets.

[The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)]

If you will indulge me, Mr Speaker, I would like to pay tribute to the hon. Lady’s predecessor, who made an amazing and powerful speech in the other place. It was quite astonishing.

We should all be proud of the excellent progress the UK has made in meeting its carbon reduction targets. The current numbers show that we have met out first budget, are on track to exceed our second and third budgets and are 97% and 95% of the way to meeting our fourth and fifth budgets. The clean growth strategy that I brought forward last year sets out an ambitious set of 50 policies and proposals that will help us to meet those targets.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the Minister for her tribute to my predecessor, Baroness Jowell, who is much loved in Dulwich and West Norwood.

Southwark Council confirmed last week that it has invested its £150 million pension fund in a low-carbon investment, concluding that continuing to hold significant investments in fossil fuels in the context of climate change would present a long-term financial risk to the fund. Will the Minister tell me what conversations she is having with private firms with large pension funds to encourage and facilitate divestment from fossil fuels, which is now clearly the most responsible decision for pension fund members and the future of our planet?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady points out the very powerful fact that the Government can set policy and bring forward achievable targets, such as our renewables ambition, but we also need the private sector and private capital to be involved in financing this transition. I have numerous conversations with companies about what they are doing with their own investments and, equally, about what they will be doing to help other companies to invest in a more sustainable future. I refer her to the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which I launched with my Canadian counterpart last year and which is helping the world to get off the dirtiest form of fossil fuel heating.

Budget Resolutions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The measure of the Budget must surely be the promises that the Conservatives made to the British people over and again during the election campaign in June. They promised the British people a strong economy that would deliver investment in our public services. The Budget reveals just how badly the Government are letting down the British people and just how high the costs of the Government’s botched and divided process are proving to be. Instead of the strong economy that was promised, we see a forecast of poor productivity leading to exceptionally weak economic growth, wage stagnation and rising inflation. We were promised a strong economy, but instead, families up and down the country are facing an unprecedented further five years of falling living standards. They are running to stand still, but the best that the Chancellor can offer is that by 2025 average wages will have reached the same levels as in 2008. And instead of committing to the £350 million a week for the NHS promised by his colleagues in the Vote Leave campaign, the Chancellor is committing more taxpayers’ money to fund the cost of Brexit than he is to our NHS.

It is on the NHS that I wish to focus the remainder of my remarks today, as the scale of the financial challenges facing it makes the Budget look like a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. We are approaching the most pressured time of year for the NHS, and its hard-working staff are approaching the winter in fear and trepidation because the pressures under which they are already working absorb all the resilience and reserves they can muster. The local hospital in my constituency is King’s College Hospital. Prior to 2010, King’s was performing well and was financially stable, but when I contacted it recently on behalf of a constituent who had spent five days waiting on a trolley to be allocated a bed on a ward, I was told that the hospital was more than 100% full. King’s is an exceptional place full of exceptional people, but it is being asked by this Government to deliver the impossible.

The performance of our NHS is inextricably linked to the performance of social care services, yet the Budget made no mention at all of social care. Funding sufficient high-quality social care would be the single most transformative measure that the Government could introduce for our NHS. The failure of this Budget on social care is just one of the many ways in which the Government continue to disadvantage women, who make up the overwhelming majority of hard-pressed carers, both paid and unpaid. It is one of the many ways in which the Budget is failing people up and down the country.

Royal Mail Delivery Office Closures

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Royal Mail delivery office closures.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I was prompted to seek the debate because my constituency is threatened with the closure of two delivery offices, and I understand the impact that those closures will have on my constituents if they go ahead. I also want to highlight the wider pattern of delivery office closures, which affect not only my constituents but communities across the country, which I believe to be a direct, damaging consequence of the coalition Government’s decision to privatise Royal Mail in 2013.

Earlier this year, Royal Mail announced plans to close the West Norwood and East Dulwich delivery offices in my constituency. Since then, more than 1,000 local residents have contacted me to express their opposition to the closures, and many have also written to Royal Mail’s chief executive, Moya Greene. People from all walks of life have attended three public protests on the issue, among them wheelchair users, small business owners, home workers and many families and elderly residents who are keen to speak out on the impact that the loss of their local delivery office will have on them.

Royal Mail delivery offices are where the final stage in the mail sorting process takes place, the depots from which postal workers collect their rounds, and the front counter facilities where customers can collect parcels, recorded delivery mail and mail sent to a PO box address. Royal Mail argues that because a parcel can be left with a neighbour or have its delivery rescheduled, communities can manage without delivery offices, but there are many people for whom those options simply do not work, including those who work long hours; the many small business owners and sole traders who prefer to collect their mail from their local delivery office precisely because they can pick it up at a time of their choosing, allowing them to get on with other important meetings and errands rather than being tied inflexibly to a particular location; and people who simply do not have the time to be tied to their home just to wait for a delivery.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on calling this debate. Does she agree that often the most vulnerable people—elderly people and so on—who are restricted by problematic public transport such as a lack of buses are also hit hard by these closures?

[Helen Hayes]

My hon. Friend’s intervention is well made. I will come on to talk about the impact that the closures will have on vulnerable constituents in my constituency and elsewhere.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does she also agree that where offices are proposed for closure as part of wider regeneration plans, as is the case in my constituency in relation to Stretford sorting office, it is important that new public facilities are considered as part of that regeneration?

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

It is a problem across the country that where delivery offices are being closed, the receipts from the sale of that land are recouped entirely for the benefit of shareholders and not reinvested in alternative facilities for customers.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

I concur with the congratulations to my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does she recognise that when Royal Mail argues, as it has in the case of the proposed closure of the Holbeck delivery office in my constituency, that it will

“improve facilities for our customers in the LS11 postcode area”,

that kind of comment provokes a hollow laugh on the part of residents who will have to travel much further, taking in some cases not one but two buses to pick up a letter or parcel from the office that Royal Mail now tells them they will have to go to, if the closure goes ahead? We are very much resisting the closure, together with the Communication Workers Union.

[Helen Hayes]

My right hon. Friend is right to make that point. Extended delivery hours at a location very far from where residents live is no substitute for having a facility directly in their community. That is exactly the issue we are debating.

There is also a significant problem for customers who pay to use the PO box service, for the confidentiality and convenience that provides, and for whom Royal Mail appears not to have accounted at all in its plans. Delivery offices are also part of the fabric of our communities. There is a strong relationship between Royal Mail staff and the customers they serve, which makes the institutions more than simply transactional in the role they play.

The closures Royal Mail is proposing in my constituency would severely restrict the accessibility of services for my constituents. Under the proposals, residents in the SE27 postcode area, who currently use the West Norwood delivery office, would be required to travel not to the next nearest delivery office, which is too small to accommodate the work from West Norwood, but to a delivery office three miles away, which requires them to take two different buses on congested roads: a journey that can easily take an hour each way, not accounting for the queuing time that will inevitably result from more mail being delivered at that delivery office.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I want to make an observation that I hope she will agree with. There is a general decline in our parcel service, which is exacerbated by the closures of facilities. I think 38% of parcels arrive late, 28% of parcels are left in insecure areas, and 28% of people get a note through the door saying that nobody was in when there was. What I find most difficult to accept is that all these closures have taken place without public consultation.

[Helen Hayes]

It is precisely my argument that Royal Mail needs to compete on quality, not simply seek to reduce its costs to survive in the competitive environment it finds itself in.

The impact is similar in East Dulwich, where residents will have to travel to Peckham to collect their post, to a delivery office that is not easy to find and which has no dedicated parking. In East Dulwich, it is accepted by staff that the current delivery office building is not fit for purpose, but that is only because of the immense growth in parcel deliveries at that location, which means that the workload has outgrown the site. That is only an argument for finding new premises in the SE22 postcode area, not an argument for forcing residents to travel longer distances to collect their mail.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing a very important issue to the House. I apologise that I will have to leave early—I have already apologised to the Chair and Minister. The hon. Lady refers to parcel services. A large number of constituents do not have access to the internet or computers or may not be computer literate. Therefore, when it comes to arranging delivery, they cannot use the alternatives of parcel lockers or click and collect. Does she feel that Royal Mail has not been fair to its bread-and-butter customers who have kept it going all these years?

[Helen Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman’s point is well made. I will come on to data that clearly prove that it is the overwhelming preference of customers to have parcels delivered to their home and not to any other location.

The much longer journeys will clearly be even more challenging for older people, disabled residents and those with very small children. As one of my constituents —a 77-year-old pensioner who cares full-time for her disabled adult daughter—has described in a letter to Moya Greene,

“this journey would be exhausting but since I do not drive and I am unable to afford a taxi, there would be no alternative to it.”

Royal Mail has argued that a need for modernisation is driving the changes, but when I visited the West Norwood delivery office during the very busy Christmas peak period it was clear that it is a modern, efficient working environment. The staff are dedicated and hard-working, and they provide an excellent service to their customers.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She speaks of distance. Does she agree that there will be a massive problem across rural Britain if this goes ahead? Royal Mail is supposed to be here to serve us, but on this it is not doing so.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend very much for that intervention. The issue of distance applies in rural areas, but in urban areas congestion and journey time rather than distance are the impediment to accessibility. Her point is well made.

The issue is far from unique to my constituency. Between the privatisation of Royal Mail in October 2013 and May 2017, 142 delivery offices—10% of the network—have been closed, and more offices are at risk of closure. Royal Mail has sold more than £200 million-worth of property and it is expected to receive at least a further £500 million of receipts shortly. At the same time, it has paid out more than £800 million in dividends, with an annual dividend now running at more than £220 million. Its chief executive is paid an annual package worth £1.9 million.

Concerns were raised time and time again by Labour MPs during the passage of the Postal Services Act 2011 under the coalition Government that privatisation would place the motive of delivering profits for shareholders at the heart of the organisation and that that would drive down the quality of service for Royal Mail customers and compromise terms and conditions for staff. The Government argued that that would not happen, because the investment funds Royal Mail would be able to access as a consequence of privatisation would be significant, but that is exactly what has happened.

There is no doubt that the postal delivery market is extremely competitive and that Royal Mail is operating in a difficult context, but it is far from clear that Royal Mail’s approach makes good business sense. In addition to providing facilities for mail collection, delivery offices are the depots from which postal workers begin their rounds. Fewer delivery offices mean that postal workers will have further to travel from their base to their rounds, resulting in mail deliveries taking place later in the day.

Among Royal Mail’s customers there is demand for high-quality delivery services, in part fuelled by the continued growth in online shopping, which means that while the number of letters delivered has reduced, the number of parcels delivered is still growing every year. A recent Ofcom survey found that 70% of people still prefer their parcels to be delivered to their home, rather than to work or a click and collect facility. While many competitors offer increasingly short delivery time slots, Royal Mail services in many areas are becoming later, less predictable and therefore less convenient.

Royal Mail was privatised in a shambolic fashion. The coalition Government rushed through the privatisation, with the then Chancellor desperate for funds to prop up his failing austerity agenda. In their rush to sell, the Government grossly underestimated the value of Royal Mail, with its shares jumping 38% on the first day of trading and the taxpayer losing out to the tune of an estimated £1 billion, according to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee. The Committee also set out how the Government failed to reap the benefits of the sale of Royal Mail assets included in the privatisation package. The Government ignored National Audit Office advice to remove those assets, notably the network of delivery offices, from the privatisation deal or to add clawback provisions on the future sale of properties. The Government valued three London sites at around £200 million, when the NAO thought they could be worth anywhere between £330 million and £830 million.

Royal Mail continues to sell sites across London at eye-watering prices, to no taxpayer benefit and with no reinvestment in its services to customers. I should be clear, however, that Royal Mail is mistaken if it believes that its site in West Norwood is a potentially lucrative housing site. The site is situated in Lambeth Council’s key industrial and business area, or KIBA, which provides strong protection to employment land uses. There is no possibility that Royal Mail will be able to sell that site for housing.

The Government also failed to define the universal service obligation beyond mail delivery, to secure an appropriate geographical distribution of delivery offices and the time and frequency of deliveries for the future. As a consequence, the social contract at the heart of Royal Mail’s relationship with the communities it serves has been broken. The organisation is orientated only toward profits, while at the same time alienating its workforce with a damaging attack on staff pensions and other terms and conditions. It is not acceptable that pensioners and disabled people in my constituency should have to travel an hour each way to collect their mail while £800 million is distributed to shareholders and the chief executive of Royal Mail is paid almost £2 million a year.

I call on the Government to recognise the scale of the problem, the aggressive approach that Royal Mail is taking to the disposal of its land assets and the total disregard that the organisation is showing for the customers and communities it was created to serve. If no action is taken, our postal delivery service will continue to be decimated and vulnerable residents, disabled people, parents with small children and small business owners will lose out the most. Privatisation is not working for Royal Mail’s customers or for postal workers, and it is time for the Government to take action. A Labour Government would take Royal Mail back into public sector ownership and replace profit with public service at the heart of the organisation.

Will the Minister commit to take action to safeguard delivery offices and the services that communities across the country rely on, and intervene to regulate Royal Mail? Will the Minister also support my urgent call on Royal Mail to scrap its closure plans in West Norwood and East Dulwich, and ensure that its vital services remain accessible to my constituents in SE27 and SE22, and across the country?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Margot James)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing today’s important debate at which some crucial issues facing the Royal Mail and the public that it serves have been raised. The Government recognise the crucial role that postal services play in communities across the country. The relocation and closure process that is the subject of the debate has dominated discussion. I would like to respond to some of the points made.

There are very good drivers for running an efficient and effective delivery service. Proposed relocations or closures of delivery offices are part of Royal Mail’s ongoing business transformation, which aims to meet changing customer expectations, increase efficiency and, yes, keep costs under control. Royal Mail always engages with its people and the trade unions before any decision to close a delivery office is taken. It also writes to the local MP and issues a press release, to provide an opportunity for wider public engagement, which is taken into account in the final decision-making process. The same goes for the Post Office.

[Helen Hayes]

It has been my experience in my constituency that the lack of an obligation on Royal Mail itself to consult the public is a huge omission in that process. Royal Mail relies on notifying the local MP and assuming that the news will somehow get out. Of course we make a noise about it, but that is no substitute for the organisation itself consulting and engaging with the public it serves. Will the Minister comment on that?

[Margot James]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I will take that point back to Royal Mail. I have been given the impression that the consultation requirements for changes such as the relocations and closures that we are discussing are the same for Royal Mail as they are for the Post Office. If that has not been the case in her constituency, I will raise that issue directly with Royal Mail.

Many local residents and businesses rely on the convenient facility that Royal Mail offers for the collection of parcels and items of mail. Where closure or relocation is necessary, Royal Mail takes care to ensure that there will be no impact on deliveries to its customers. I recognise from comments that have been made in the debate that there is a strong feeling that that statement does not seem to transmit to Members present or, possibly, to the wider public.

The postmen and women who deliver to the postcode areas covered by a relocated delivery office will continue to serve the local community. Customers do not have to visit a delivery office to collect items of mail if they are unable to do so or are not at home when Royal Mail first attempts delivery. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) raised concerns about the alternative methods that are in place, which I will run through before I come to her proposal. Royal Mail has put in place a variety of options to ensure that customers get their deliveries in the most convenient way possible. It will always attempt to leave an item with a neighbour in the first instance, and customers may nominate a neighbour to take in their parcel. It is also possible for customers to arrange a delivery free of charge on a day that is convenient for them, including Saturdays. A further option is to arrange for the item to be delivered to a different address in the same postcode area. Those are several ways in which Royal Mail has attempted to maintain customer service.

The hon. Lady proposed that local networks of delivery points, including post offices, should be considered. There is already an option to redirect mail to a post office —that is a paid-for service, for which I believe the charge is 70p—but I am sure that Royal Mail will be open to that suggestion and others, as it is determined to improve its customer service throughout this change process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed and taken the time to be here. I particularly thank everybody for their forbearance with the interruptions of the Division bell—including yourself, Mr Gapes. We are nearly at the end of the debate.

I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), who spoke with such passion and conviction on the basis of his long experience working for Royal Mail. I join others in saying that I hope his career break from the Royal Mail will be significantly longer than five years, much as I am sure he is missed by his colleagues.

We have heard from many hon. Members, but notwithstanding the alternative provisions for parcel collection and redelivery that Royal Mail has put in place, those solutions simply do not work for many communities across the country. They certainly ring hollow with my constituents, as it is not the case that nobody ever needs to visit a delivery office. In my opening speech, I mentioned the situation for users of the PO box services, and the same applies to people who have to pay excess charges for their mail. There are reasons why it is sometimes essential to visit a Royal Mail delivery office.

The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) mentioned the possibility of using the network of post offices more for collection services. It is problematic that customers currently have to pay for that service. From my experience in negotiations with Royal Mail on the situation in my constituency, I know that often post offices do not have the physical capacity to cope with large numbers of parcels, so I think that is a flawed solution.

I come back to the issue that I started with. The problem in many communities is the erosion of the services that Royal Mail provides. What is being proposed in my constituency, if you understand its geography and how public transport works there, simply lacks all credibility as an approach to public service. I see an organisation that is putting profit at its heart and not its obligations to the public that it was set up to serve. Once again, I ask the Minister to consider whether the flawed decision to privatise Royal Mail is working for communities up and down the country—I maintain that it is not. Once again, I ask the Minister to consider intervening and using her good offices to secure the services that our communities rely on, and to think again about Royal Mail’s status in the private sector as a profit-making entity.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Royal Mail delivery office closures.