Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lee Barron and Blair McDougall(1 week, 1 day ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Blair McDougall)
It was worth waiting for. We are clear that Royal Mail’s service performance has not been good enough. I met the sector’s independent regulator Ofcom yesterday to stress the widespread concerns among hon. Members about service standards. My hon. Friend has deep experience in this area, and I welcome his engagement with the main delivery office in Corby, where Royal Mail tells me that it is recruiting nine new postal workers to support the timeliness and quality of its postal services.
Lee Barron
Quality of service in the Royal Mail has been at shocking levels over recent years. Considering that Royal Mail is legally obliged to deliver a universal service and keep our communities connected, will the Minister join me in calling on Royal Mail’s owners to honour their agreement, end the two-tier workforce, and bring new entrants’ terms and conditions up to the same standard as those of substantive Royal Mail employees? Fifty per cent of new entrants are leaving the service within a year, which is leading to a decimation in the quality of service.
Blair McDougall
My hon. Friend is correct to highlight that the service quality issues are linked directly to workers’ terms and conditions. It is precisely because we take that connection so seriously that the Secretary of State convened the meeting between the unions and the owners of Royal Mail. Ofcom made it clear in our meeting yesterday that it expects the plan for improvements in quality of service to be in place within days of an agreement being reached with the unions, and we will certainly hold Royal Mail to that.
Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation
Debate between Lee Barron and Blair McDougall(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Blair McDougall
I hope that the hon. Member can tell from my body language and tone that I share the anger and frustration of Members across the House. As I mentioned, I am meeting Ofcom later today to raise the very issues she mentions. I slightly take issue with the year zero approach she took. There are very long-standing issues with Royal Mail driven—in fairness—by the changes in consumer habits and the things we are sending and not sending any more. She mentions the new ownership. As part of that deed of undertaking, this Government got the assurance from the new owners that they could not take value out of the company until service improved. That shows that we take this matter seriously.
Lee Barron (Corby and East Northamptonshire) (Lab)
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
It is not just the customers who are rightly angry; it is postal workers as well, because they take pride in their job and the service they give. The last time I was in Corby delivery office, six deliveries never went out that day. The time before that, a postal worker volunteered to cover his own delivery on his day off. He was told that he could not, and when he went back in the day after, the work was still there; the delivery had not gone out. We now have a two-tier workforce, which is leading to a recruitment and retention crisis, and it is a standing joke in the job that the quickest way to get a letter delivered is to put it inside a parcel. Does the Minister agree that instead of Royal Mail imposing top-down changes by people who have never done the job before, it should listen to its workforce, sit down with the union and sort this mess out?
Blair McDougall
My hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to do what I have not done so far, which is to say that whatever criticisms hon. Members across the House have, they are in no way a critique of the work of our heroic posties up and down the country. I mentioned earlier that the Secretary of State brought together management and unions; Royal Mail is a private company, and we are not seeking to insert ourselves and become mediators, but that was a signal of how seriously we take this matter and how seriously we take the need for management and the unions to come together and address, through mutual understanding, exactly the issues he raises.