Performance of Royal Mail

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[David Reed]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and—to raise a point made by the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore), who introduced the debate—this is not on the posties at all; the posties do a fantastic job. From the numbers for Royal Mail, it looks like asset stripping is going on, so we can understand why those posties are having a difficult time.

There may be a perception that letters are no longer particularly important, but that is far from the case, especially in areas with elderly populations such as my constituency.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

Jane Austen’s Mr Knightley said:

“Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very positive curse”.

But it seems to me that Royal Mail very much treats letters as a matter of indifference, and that is causing a huge problems for my constituents, such as those who have missed NHS letters, as has been discussed, and the farmers who are not receiving animal tags in time to get their livestock to market. It is a really serious issue. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Royal Mail needs to get its act together and treat the letter service as seriously as it treats the parcel service?

[David Reed]

I completely agree, and I think we will have a lot of consensus in the debate this evening, as we did in my debate in March.

Royal Mail clearly says that it is now a parcel company that still delivers letters, and that is an issue that affects countries very close to us. Denmark has PostNord, which has operated for about 400 years, and they are going through the exact same problems as us.

We have the universal service obligation, and we really need to work on that to make sure it is fit for purpose and there are repercussions for not fulfilling those roles.