Asked by: Jen Craft (Labour - Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what discussions he has had with Royal Mail on reforming the Universal Service Obligation.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Ministers and officials have discussions with Royal Mail on a regular basis in its capacity as the universal service provider.
Ofcom, as the independent regulator of postal services, has a duty to secure the provision of a financially sustainable and efficient universal postal service that meets the reasonable needs of users and it is permitted to make limited changes to its regulation accordingly.
Asked by: Jen Craft (Labour - Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of Royal Mail's proposed Optimised Delivery Model.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Royal Mail and the Communication Workers’ Union agreed to run pilots in selected offices to design, test and review the operation of the proposed delivery model in response to the changes made by Ofcom, the independent regulator for postal services, to Royal Mail’s universal service obligation.
The government does not have a role in the operational decisions of the business.