Delivery Charges (Scotland)

Hugh Gaffney Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Douglas Ross]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will make that point again as the debate progresses. However, I think that using a ferry to get to Moray would incur a greater surcharge when we can use the road, rail and planes as anyone else would.

Marion from Speyside bought a new shower earlier this year. She knew the design that she wanted; she knew the model, the product, but she ended up buying it from Germany with free packaging and postage. That was cheaper than using other firms that advertise free UK mainland carriage, because of the large surcharge on AB and IV postcodes. She added in her email to me,

“It is this type of pricing that really annoys me as you are often at the final stages of paying before you find out. I am glad you and Mr Lockhead are highlighting this issue.”

[Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. Having worked for Parcelforce for 27 years and been a union rep, I am well familiar with the surcharge debate, because we have been arguing about this for 20 years.

This is the problem: these companies, which the hon. Gentleman is referring to and his constituents have talked to, advertise postage and packaging and they make a massive profit out of it, but the final mile is left with Royal Mail. These companies charge a fortune for the parcel, take a piece of the postage and packaging, and make a massive profit by only handling the parcel once; the parcel is given to Royal Mail and we do the final mile. That is why our wages have been under threat, because that is a cost efficiency that costs Royal Mail a lot of money. These people need to be exposed and I thank the hon. Gentleman for doing that today.

[Douglas Ross]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The discussion I had at my local sorting office on Monday suggested that these companies pick all the low-hanging fruit. They are quite happy to deliver to the more urban areas where they can get these parcels out very quickly, but they leave the more challenging areas to Royal Mail, or, as we are speaking about the private couriers, they just refuse to deliver to some of these areas at all. That is unacceptable.

I have spoken about a number of products that I expected to speak about in this debate, such as showers. I did not think I would be speaking about pigeon racing, but I have a constituent from Elgin, whose hobby is pigeon racing. He is a member of the North of Scotland Federation and the Elgin and District Racing Pigeon Club. He tells me that all the members of the Elgin club send away for various products for their pigeons and most of the companies that sell to them believe that Moray is not attached to the UK mainland. As soon as you punch in “IV30” to the address section, up pops an attachment saying that special terms apply. He tells me that there is in fact a website from Spain that will deliver cheaper to Scotland than the biggest online pigeon supplier in the UK, which trades from Scarborough. That is surely not acceptable.

Finally, I want to mention Rebecca from Stacks Coffee House and Bistro in John O’Groats, who started a change.org campaign in July to help bring to light the widespread issue of delivery costs to the highlands and islands, and Scotland as a whole. As of this afternoon, that petition had attracted 13,600 signatures. The website they have set up is a great way of presenting the case against these rip-off charges and to show people that the politicians are taking their views seriously. One quote on the website summed up the situation well. It said:

“If a company can deliver to Land’s End for free…they can also deliver to John O’Groats.”

A gentleman called Alan, who had seen me raising this at Prime Minister’s questions, contacted me. He had tried to get a kitchen worktop delivered to the Kyle of Lochalsh. The delivery was £475. However, when he put in his in-laws’ address in Fife, it reduced to £40.

Someone I know from Wick contacted me about how it was cheaper to get something for his business delivered further south in Scotland, but it also had a delivery guarantee for the next day. When it did not arrive on time, he complained and sought a refund. The company refused. When he said he would pursue this, he was told that they would cancel his whole order and take back all the goods. In other words, a very blatant threat of blackmail: “Don’t speak up about delivery prices and standards, and if you do, we will punish you.” It is simply not good enough.

This does not just impact individuals. I have heard from a small business in Moray, which regularly gets better service from a supplier in Lower Saxony, Germany, than from the United Kingdom. The point is that high delivery charges contribute to a relatively high living cost in remote and rural areas. It acts as a disincentive to entrepreneurs setting up businesses, which could mitigate depopulation caused by declining employment opportunities in traditional sectors. I hope that the Minister will agree with me that this should be of concern to Highlands and Islands Enterprise and I am very keen to work with it to ensure that we can move this campaign forward.

In the last few minutes, if hon. Members will allow me, as the mover of this debate, I will finish with some personal experiences. My wife is celebrating her birthday today in the north of Scotland, separated from me by 500 miles. While I cannot be with her, I was hoping that if I mention her in the debate tonight, that may make up for my absence. That allows me to say that given that her birthday is on 20 December, it is difficult for me, like any man, to come up with present suggestions. She is always very efficient. She gives me a list and does not trust me to use my own initiative; I have a list of the presents I have to buy her for her birthday and Christmas every year. But like all of my Moray constituents, when I purchase these presents for her and I put in my IV30 postcode, I get charged a fortune to have it delivered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I, too, will cut my speech short as a courtesy to everybody else. Along with the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), it is my mother’s birthday today. I send her a happy birthday—her card is in the post.

In conclusion—I will make it short—Scotland and Northern Ireland are not in isolation. We have roads, bridges, boats and aeroplanes where needed. We—I am talking about the Royal Mail, given my connection with it—deliver six days a week. We keep the universal service obligation—the USO. To those private companies, it is a UFO. Some private profiteers believe that we have UFOs, but we do not. They should stop ripping off customers with these surcharge prices. We can do it; we do it six days a week. We give a fantastic service. I ask Ofcom to look at the prices. If it can set them, we can deliver on time. Then when we talk to customers, we can talk about the quality of service, not the surcharge price.

Finally, on behalf of Santa Claus, I thank all postal workers for the hard, dedicated work that that they do for us, and wish them all a merry Christmas.