Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Blair McDougall

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Blair McDougall]

I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to posties in Stockport and Greater Manchester. Like posties all across the country, they go the extra mile in incredibly difficult circumstances. As I mentioned, we are bringing together unions and management for talks, to make sure that we get to a resolution and progress the future of the business. We are also pressing Ofcom on the enforcement action that it can take to progress the improvement plan that Royal Mail has committed to producing.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

Just recently, Royal Mail in Tonbridge introduced a new working model that has been, quite frankly, an abject failure. I welcome the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) asking this urgent question, because this is quite clearly a matter for not just one constituency or community, but the whole country. I am grateful to the Minister, who is assiduous in his role, for taking it up. Will he raise with management that while we all recognise that this is about not just privatisation or ownership, but the change in the way that people use the post, and our use of emails and so on, the problems have a very real effect on people’s lives, particularly in communities like mine in Tonbridge? I am not the only one who has missed an appointment because the letter arrived weeks, or even months, after I was supposed to attend.

[Blair McDougall]

I know from my talks with officials that the right hon. Gentleman has been in discussions about the issues in Tonbridge, and that Royal Mail is seized of those. He is absolutely right. Members have mentioned hospital appointments; it is worth mentioning the important post that we hon. Members send to often very vulnerable constituents. That is a reminder that the post is a central part of our national life and economy, and we have to see it improve.

Seasonal Work

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Blair McDougall

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

Will the Minister give way?

[Blair McDougall]

I will give way one more time, but only because I have deep affection for the right hon. Gentleman.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The Minister is a charming and, no doubt, soon to be very well-haircutted gentleman. The point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) was making—I am afraid this reinforces it—is that such a choice was clearly not in the Government’s plans, either. Otherwise, they would not have brought forward the welfare changes they planned in July, but have since been bounced out of by their own Back Benchers. It clearly was not their plan either, and that is why we are in this position.

[Blair McDougall]

But it is in our plan. We have just passed the Budget, which introduces the relief on business rates.

Let me return to the theme of “A Christmas Carol” and the visit of the ghost of Christmas past. Let us travel back to when the hon. Member for Droitwich and Evesham gushed about Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, with her unfunded tax giveaway, which he said represented “a new era” and would

“help everybody with the cost-of-living pressures”.

Well, unlike Ebenezer Scrooge, the hon. Gentleman has not repented; he has not seen the error of his ways and the impact of unfunded commitments. Instead, he is at it again, calling for tax cuts without any idea whatsoever of how to pay for them.

Supporting High Streets

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Blair McDougall

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Blair McDougall]

In a moment, I will come to our plans to reduce the mountain of red tape that the right hon. Member’s Government left us with, and to reduce the cost of that red tape.

Conservative Member after Conservative Member spoke about the Employment Rights Bill. I should say at the outset that we want the rights in that Bill to be fit for the 21st century—the last time that we properly reviewed our employment law and the relationship between employer and employee was in the last century. However, I am astonished that right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative Benches do not seem to see the connection between how much money people have in their pockets and the ability of their local high streets to thrive. Giving people more secure work and higher wages means that the money in their pockets ends up in the tills of local businesses.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for giving way—he is a friend, and he is a great man, but he is entirely wrong on this question. The argument he is making is a correct one, which is why I advocate for lowering taxes. However, this Government have raised taxes and rates for businesses, and if we are to believe what the Chancellor has been saying this morning, we have all been warned that she is about to raise taxes on individuals as well. That is costing us all, because people are reining in their spending in anticipation of being poorer.

[Blair McDougall]

I will return the compliment to my right hon. Friend before I disagree with him. This is the problem; there is a certain cheek to the Conservative party leaving us a burning building and then criticising us for reaching for the fire hose. We had to stabilise the public finances—and again, that is not abstract. The Conservatives have to learn the lesson—here comes the groan—from the Liz Truss Budget. They have to learn that lesson, because this is not abstract for businesses.

Returning to the issue of stripping out the costs of red tape, in March the Government pledged in our regulation action plan to cut the cost of regulatory burdens by 25%. At the regional investment summit last month, my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Business Secretary made a great start on that, creating an additional £230 million of savings for businesses by changing the requirements on directors’ reports for businesses of any size.