Performance of Royal Mail

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Members for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) and for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for initiating the debate, and, in particular, I thank the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) for his incredibly thoughtful speech. I am not going to get political about this, but our position for ages has been that we should renationalise Royal Mail.

When I read that Royal Mail would be delivering second-class mail only every second weekday, I misread it as, “Royal Mail will be delivering second-class mail every second weekend.” I thought, “Oh, thank goodness! My constituents in Bridge of Don will be getting a better service than the one that they currently receive,” because every second weekend would be significantly better than what they are getting now.

I have visited the delivery offices in my constituency. There is Bridge of Don, there is Mastrick and there is Kittybrewster. I think there is a benefit in living in Scotland in this regard, because the central comms people do not come to these meetings, so I get honesty from the posties. I am wondering what happens when I send a letter, or rather an email, to Royal Mail—there is no point in sending a letter—saying, “Mrs Goggins is having an issue with her mail delivery. She lives in Bridge of Don. Here is her address.” Does Royal Mail Central actually contact the delivery office and say, “Mrs Goggins is having a problem. Please reply and let us know what is happening”? Or does Royal Mail just send me an email back saying, “Everything is fine, it is all great, don't worry,” without actually speaking to the delivery office?

The hon. Member for Lichfield talked about not having all the answers. Well, I will tell the House who has most of the answers: the posties. The posties know what changes need to be made. I went to one of my local delivery offices, and the staff were talking about the design of the cages and the design of the routes. They had asked Royal Mail whether they could change some of the routes and cages. Royal Mail took months to get back to them, but it turned out that they were not allowed to change the design of the cages—they were dangerous, with things falling off them—without the say-so of Royal Mail. It is an incredibly top-down organisation. The posties know how to fix this. The posties know how to improve their routes. They are making these cases to Royal Mail Central, who come back to them with, “I know that that street is off this street, but we are going to keep it on the other route, just because we are in charge and it may look quite good on Google Maps.” I do not understand why Royal Mail is not listening to the posties, who know exactly what they are doing and who know how to improve the routes.

As hon. Members have said, the issue is that Royal Mail’s leadership are trying to asset strip the organisation. It feels like they are not trying to improve the service. They do not care about improving the service; they just care about improving profits. We have been fighting on behalf of our constituents, but we have also been fighting on behalf of the posties, who are not being listened to and who feel like they are banging their heads against a brick wall.

It is not just about NHS letters, although one constituent got in touch to say that they had not received any mail between 23 September and 14 October. They got nine letters, seven of which were NHS letters, and they have been put at the bottom of a waiting list because they missed their appointment. I can tell which letters are NHS letters when they come through my door or when I see them at the sorting office. I know which ones they are, as do the posties, but they are not allowed to take them out and ensure that they are being put at the top of the priority list.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

NHS letters have come up a lot, and we are letting Royal Mail off the hook if we say that it is okay to prioritise them. That is a workaround for a failed service, and many other letters are important but, for various reasons, will not be branded. Benefits letters, for example, are often anonymous, and sometimes even health letters can be private. Does the hon. Lady have anything to say about that?

[Kirsty Blackman]

The workaround on barcodes, for example, works only in some areas, and some of the health boards cannot use that workaround. It is absolutely a workaround; it does not ensure that we have a universal service obligation or that the postal service, which people rely on, is actually working.

I do not know about the offices of other MPs, but my office often needs to get people’s wet signatures. Organisations such as UK Visas and Immigration or local councils will require us to get someone to sign a form, and many times we have posted that form to people but they have not got it. What are we supposed to do if people do not have a printer at home? A lot of people do not, understandably. If somebody, particularly in the Bridge of Don, does not have a printer at home and we post them a form, they will not get the letter. How can they get a democratic service, or get us to raise a complaint with the city council on their behalf, if they are not getting the letter?

We have had too many by-elections this year, and a number of people in Aberdeen told us that they did not get their postal votes—they did not arrive. In a council by-election, it is hard enough to get people to vote, but when someone does not get their postal vote, they just say, “I won’t bother.” People are missing out on the democratic process because of the failure of Royal Mail, which cannot even prioritise those letters. I do not understand how Royal Mail can repeatedly say to each one of us, “Everything is fine,” or “We’re working on improvements,” when this is an absolute disaster.

The post is a lifeline. It is a really important public service, and we need Royal Mail and Ofcom to step up, but we need the Government to put on as much pressure as possible to ensure they do.

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[David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for securing the debate and my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) and for Corby and East Northamptonshire (Lee Barron), and many other hon. Members across the House, for their work on this matter. My constituents in Southend West and Leigh, like those of so many other hon. Members, have been rightfully disappointed in the service provided by Royal Mail. I concur with much of what I have heard.

Southend was the original pilot area for the optimised delivery model, so we have been experiencing these issues locally for well over a year. It was deeply concerning that the clear indications that the ODM was not working in Southend did not prevent it from being rolled out nationwide. It is increasingly frustrating for my constituents, who feel that they are not getting the service they are paying for. For many people, the poor service has been not just inconvenient but disastrous, and we have heard many stories tonight about how it has been replicated across the country.

NHS letters are not the only urgent post not being delivered. One constituent lost a job opportunity when a Disclosure and Barring Service certificate failed to arrive in time and another man, who was terminally ill, experienced unacceptable delays in receiving the paperwork he had requested to arrange his own funeral. I heard many such stories at a public meeting I held back in April, which gave residents the chance to put their concerns directly to Royal Mail’s regional management. Improvement was promised at the meeting, but guess what? It never came.

In July, I held a consultation, which received 122 responses in just a couple of days. I am sorry to say that the feedback was overwhelmingly negative. Of those 122, 102 said that they were “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with the postal service. Only one person considered the current standard of service acceptable.

Throughout this time, I have regularly met the CWU—the union that represents postal workers—and heard from it that postal workers in my constituency have been overworked, under immense pressure and unhappy with the standard of service they have been able to provide. They are equally unhappy at the massive variations between the old and new contracts, but I do not have time to talk about that.

I was heartened to hear—a bit of positivity—that after a visit in August, having requested my fourth visit to the depot, Southend sorting office, in partnership with CWU reps, was ready to trial a new system that would rebalance the round loads and help reinforce the local link between the postie and their area in an amendment to DM26 that is about to be rolled out. Posties are much more efficient when they know the layout of their rounds, so it is clearly not rocket science to have them on a dedicated round.

The trial took place in Leigh-on-Sea in my constituency. A month later, I was glad to visit the sorting office again and see the racks empty—but this time the CWU assured me that things had worked well and that, in that particular round, they were back in control. As of 19 October, the new system has been rolled out across our whole sorting office area. I will be keeping a watching brief, but it is showing real positive signs. I hope that those at Royal Mail will look at the success of the local pilot and roll it out across the rest of the country. If it is working, why would they not?

[Kirsty Blackman]

Does the hon. Member share my concern that Royal Mail bosses do not seem to want to improve the service? So many of my constituents are no longer posting anything because they do not believe that it is ever going to get there—the lack of service means that lots of people are turning away from the postal service completely. Does he feel that if Royal Mail continues down the route of putting DM26 in place without the amendments, people will give up on Royal Mail entirely and we will risk losing it totally?

[David Burton-Sampson]

I share those concerns. We have heard from Members across the House tonight that many people feel that Royal Mail is putting the service into a managed decline. We have to fight against that. The service is vital across the country, and we have to do everything we can to ensure that we do not lose it. Royal Mail has let people down for far too long, and it needs to work at speed to get things back on track.

It was great to see the Government’s announcement in September about cracking down on bogus self-employment. That is rightly a priority for the CWU. Delivery companies undercutting Royal Mail’s prices by mislabelling staff as self-employed to avoid statutory obligations—shifting costs on to workers so that nothing is covered—is unacceptable. Those companies do not cover sick pay, employer national insurance contributions, holidays or even the petrol used for deliveries. We do not want to see Royal Mail dragged down to that level. Our Government want everyone to enjoy security in their employment.

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[Kirsty Blackman]

I thank the hon. Member for talking about the statistics—it is really important to do that. I am concerned, though, that the statistics, particularly those provided by Royal Mail, are deeply inaccurate. My constituents say they are not getting mail for three weeks at a time very regularly, but Royal Mail has come back to me and said, “Everything’s pretty fine—don’t worry about it.” Is he concerned that Ofcom might not even know the full breadth of the issue, particularly as we have heard Members from Aberdeen, from the Western Isles and from Devon all raising the same issue? It is clearly happening everywhere.

[Luke Murphy]

Indeed, I was going to say that I would like to see the Government press Ofcom and Royal Mail to deliver much more granular data on delivery targets. That is really important, because the national performance —woeful as it is—does not represent the even worse performance that we are seeing locally. Indeed, Royal Mail has been set lower targets nationally, but it is not even meeting them. And behind these figures and statistics are the streets and lanes, like those in my constituency, where the post simply does not come. Members across this House recognise this; it is a cross-party concern about a service that the whole country depends on. The Communication Workers Union has highlighted this over and again: persistent delivery failures; a growing recruitment and retention crisis; and an unevenly regulated postal market which threatens the future of the universal service that we have heard so many Members speak about so passionately tonight.

Royal Mail has told all of us, I think, that it recognises the problem and is committed and is making promises for change but, frankly, all of us in this House and my constituents have heard these promises before. The test of any plan will not be what it says on paper; it will be whether hospital letters start to arrive before appointments.

I welcome the Government’s clear stance in response. Ministers have told Royal Mail’s leadership that its service has been unacceptable for too long and the pace of improvement must increase. The public deserve a reliable postal service and are right to expect better, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to keep holding Royal Mail to account. I hope the Minister will continue applying that pressure. In particular, I hope she will consider whether Ofcom is currently really up to the job of regulating Royal Mail and look closely at how Royal Mail handles complaints. As many Members have said this evening, our constituents find the way in which it deals with those complaints totally inadequate. The Government must also press for greater transparency on local performance, as we have just discussed, and look seriously at the recommendations of the Business and Trade Committee’s May 2026 report on the regulation of postal services and the proposals, as other Members have mentioned, from the CWU, including on a level playing field for the sector, a new regulatory framework and building on the Government’s golden share.

Royal Mail remains a vital national institution providing an essential universal service. We all have a stake in ensuring it succeeds, not least my constituents in Basingstoke, who have every right to expect better.

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[Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Like colleagues from across the House, my constituents have been telling me for months and months now—in casework emails, in surgeries, on street stalls and everywhere else you can think of—that the service they rely on is no longer the one they used to have. As has been mentioned many times, residents report important letters arriving weeks late, hospital appointments being missed, financial documents turning up long after they were needed, and businesses struggling with uncertainty over deliveries.

For communities such as Wrexham, this is not simply an inconvenience; it is a matter of fairness, connectivity and trust in a public service. While many people have embraced digital communication, not everyone can. Elderly residents, vulnerable individuals, rural households and those without reliable digital access continue to depend on the arrival of letters through the door.

[Kirsty Blackman]

On missed deliveries, and I suppose their emotional cost, the Chair of the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), asked the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) about the resource cost for Royal Mail. Does the hon. Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) agree that the potential cost to the economy of Royal Mail not delivering these letters—the cost to public services, with NHS appointments being missed—could be rediverted in order to fund some of Royal Mail, were it to be renationalised?

[Andrew Ranger]

The hon. Member makes a really good point. That is definitely something we need to investigate, because it is probably a very valid point.

Postal services remain a lifeline for those who do not have digital connectivity, and any failures disproportionately affect the most vulnerable. As has been acknowledged across the House, Royal Mail is facing difficult circumstances. Letter volumes have fallen dramatically over many years and parcel volumes have grown significantly. That reflects changes across the world. Royal Mail is operating at a loss and faces significant structural challenges.

All that being said, understanding those challenges cannot mean accepting poor service. One of the most concerning issues raised with MPs by postal workers and their representatives is the widespread perception that parcels are increasingly prioritised over letters, and constituents say the same. That is despite assurances to the contrary. I have constituents who see parcels arriving promptly, on time, delivered by Royal Mail when they were supposed to be, but not letters.

Serious workforce concerns are also being reported. As we have heard, there have been retention problems due to changing terms and conditions, reports of 400 postal workers leaving the organisation each week, a culture of intense monitoring and an increasingly difficult working environment. It is clear that Royal Mail cannot provide a high-quality service without a motivated and stable workforce. At the same time, serious questions remain about the long-term sustainability of the current model, in terms of the universal service obligation, the delivery of letters, and the regulatory model.

My constituents and everyone else’s want three simple things: they want their letters delivered on time, they want transparency when things go wrong, and they want accountability from both Royal Mail and the regulator. Too often, MPs are told that performance is improving while residents continue to experience delays. Too often, complaints disappear into automated systems without satisfactory answers, and too often, local concerns are met with generic responses rather than meaningful action.

As has been said, Royal Mail occupies a unique position in our national life. It is not just another company; it is a vital part of the UK’s social and economic infrastructure, and it remains a public service even though it is a privately owned company. That is why this matters. I urge the Minister to continue engaging with Royal Mail, Ofcom, workforce representatives and consumer groups to develop a long-term vision for postal services. Any future reforms must protect the universal service obligation, while recognising the needs of communities, supporting a sustainable workforce, and ensuring that no part of the country is left with a substandard service. I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on some of the options that he presented about a possible future for Royal Mail.

Our constituents do not expect perfection—they understand that times change and markets evolve—but they do expect that when a letter is posted, it arrives when it should. That is not an unreasonable expectation; it is the foundation of trust in a service that has connected communities for generations.

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[Bradley Thomas]

What I recognise is that the problem is getting worse. As I have mentioned, it is incumbent on the Government to get a grip of the situation. I hope that the Government have heard loud and clear the concerns from Members across the House, regardless of political party, about what their constituents are facing, and that the Minister will address those concerns shortly.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Will the hon. Gentleman join calls for more granular data, so that we can ensure that every constituency is represented in the data? Some Members have talked specifically about towns and villages, where I appreciate that there is an issue, but there is also an issue in cities. A number of us who represent cities have said that we have problems.

[Bradley Thomas]

That is a point I will touch on with regard to transparency levels.

There have been seven stamp price rises in four years, with the price of a first-class stamp having doubled since 2022. It is clear that residents in my constituency, and those represented by Members from across the House, are paying a first-class price for a second-class service. If consumers are expected to pay higher prices for a service, they rightly expect such a service to deliver on its promises, yet residents face a much different reality from what Royal Mail claims. Its local performance target of 87% of first-class post being delivered the next working day was achieved in only 42 of the 118 postcode areas—a statistic that resonates with my constituents and those of many Members here today. Every industry has a level of standard that it is expected to meet, and Royal Mail should not be any different, but it is failing. It is time for accountability and material action in order to deliver tangible results.

Alongside the stark statistics that have been quoted, the House will have heard me and other Members express strong discontent in Westminster Hall last week about the report earlier this year that Royal Mail will deliver 219 million letters late. With NHS waiting lists already too long, we cannot afford for more appointments to be missed due to late letter delivery. With the cost of living already debilitating families across the country, they cannot afford missed payment charges due to delayed bill arrival.

To be clear, and in common with Members from across the House, I do not believe that the fault lies with the hard-working posties who serve our communities. We are grateful for all that they do to keep us connected, but action must be taken by the highest levels of management to quickly address the real-life experiences that are depleting customer confidence. Management are failing and, speaking from my own personal experience, I am sick and tired of the platitudes that come from Royal Mail. I echo and share the concerns of Members from across the House.

In Westminster Hall last week, the Minister shared that she has been frank in her meetings with the chief executive of Royal Mail and will continue to do so for as long as necessary. However, with Christmas, the busiest time of year for postal services, only 60 days away, it is time for immediate action, not more meetings and passing the blame back and forth. Something that needs to be focused on is transparency around local delivery data, as has been suggested in the Chamber this evening. Can the Minister outline the material steps the Government are taking, alongside Ofcom, to ensure an improved service is delivered as quickly as possible? Do they have confidence that Royal Mail’s improvement plan will deliver the needed changes promptly? At what point is the service so bad that the Government decide that further action is necessary?

Expecting what you paid for is a basic standard, not an unreasonable demand. The public are tired of a failing service that continues to worsen, disrupting daily routines and tarnishing its former reputation for reliability. This is a matter of national importance about a national institution, and I believe all our constituents would like to know specifically how the Government are working with Royal Mail and Ofcom to take concrete steps to correct these issues to restore public confidence.

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[Kate Dearden]

I will be raising this issue with Royal Mail, and I will touch on my interactions with the chief executive later in my speech.

[Kirsty Blackman]

We know that postal vote letters not being delivered is an issue, and a number of us have seen that in our constituencies. I appreciate that the Minister is being clear with Royal Mail that it is an important issue, but is she aware of or has she asked Royal Mail how many of those letters were not delivered on time? How many complaints have been made? We know that a significant number of people are not even making complaints, because they do not think there is any point.

[Kate Dearden]

Colleagues have raised numerous concerns about missed mail in the Chamber and outside, and I will always raise that issue with Royal Mail. Where I need to push for transparency, I will do so. I will come shortly to what I have pushed the chief executive on.

With Christmas approaching, improvements clearly cannot wait. This is Royal Mail’s busiest period. Families and businesses that we have heard about are relying on timely deliveries. I welcome the commitment from Royal Mail to recruit 22,000 staff to help deliver this Christmas, and I will be seeking reassurances that it is doing everything it can to meet the demand.

As colleagues know, the Government do not run the delivery operations of independent businesses such as Royal Mail, but that does not mean that we are a passive observer. I have challenged Royal Mail’s leadership on performance, and I have been frank with them, as has the Prime Minister, that the pace of improvement needs to urgently increase.