Delivery Charges (Scotland)

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered delivery charges in Scotland.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. Unfair delivery charges to Moray and other parts of Scotland are not new. The despicable practice of hiking up prices to deliver to mainland UK has been going on far too long and people are fed up. That was one of the key themes that I mentioned in my maiden speech when I came to this place and it follows on from the work of my predecessor and other hon. Members who have been seeking a solution to the problem. I welcome the true cross-party approach to tackling this injustice, to calling out the unscrupulous companies that think they can treat people in the north as second-class citizens and to highlighting this shoddy behaviour for what it truly is—an inexcusable rip-off of consumers in Moray and across Scotland.

What is the issue that we are seeking to resolve? First, I have to commend the work of Royal Mail, which continues to deliver parcels anywhere in the UK for the same price. When I visited my local delivery office on Monday morning, I spoke with the manager, Mike Sinclair, and the huge number of parcels to be delivered by our local posties over the next few days was clear. People who use Royal Mail can do so with confidence that a parcel going from Moray to Manchester will cost the same as one going from Manchester to Moray. Sadly, the same cannot be said for other companies and couriers.

So often I am contacted by local people who are frustrated because they have tried to buy something online, only to be let down at the final stage. They have browsed the products, made their choice and selected a delivery option that clearly states “delivery to mainland UK”, only to be told when they put in their postcode that the IV or AB postcodes in Moray are in fact on some island offshore the mainland. If that were not so duplicitous, it might be funny, but it is not. It is a lie these companies peddle to hike up charges, and we will not stand for it any more.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I asked the hon. Gentleman before the debate for permission to intervene. He will know that the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland has brought this issue to the attention of people in Northern Ireland, where consumers are affected by it greatly. Some 33% of UK retailers apply a delivery restriction to Northern Ireland and 26% of Northern Ireland consumers are charged additional delivery costs. They are asked to pay 41% more on average than consumers anywhere else in the United Kingdom; the average charge is £11.89. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Scotland is important, but Northern Ireland is equally important? We want fair play as well.

[Douglas Ross]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. Before the debate, the parliamentary digital team created a video illustrating it and asked for people’s responses, and one response came from Northern Ireland. Sandra Dean said:

“I have been refused delivery from England to Northern Ireland, too. It is cheaper with some couriers to get a parcel delivered from UK to the Republic than to Northern Ireland!”

I therefore fully agree with the very valid points made by the hon. Gentleman.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Jim Shannon]

She’s worth it!

[Douglas Ross]

She’s absolutely worth it! I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification, just in case there was any doubt. While it is worth it, I was thinking about this recently when I bought my easyJet flight down from Inverness to London, as I do on a weekly basis. As ridiculous as this may sound, when I paid for the flight, it turned out that rather than getting parcels delivered to my home in Moray, it would be cheaper for me to get them delivered here to the House of Commons and then for me to buy a seat for that parcel on an A320 aircraft, to get it home to Moray. That is a ridiculous situation and just shows how much people are taking advantage of my constituents and others who suffer in this way.

The Minister has heard from me, and will hear from other hon. Members, just how significant this problem really is. She will be aware from the meetings that I have had with her and the Secretary of State earlier this week that this is an issue I will pursue until consumers in Moray are treated the same way as those elsewhere in the United Kingdom. I am keen to hold a roundtable in Westminster with companies that believe they can take advantage and impose these rip-off charges on Scotland, and I have requested an inquiry on this issue with the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs.