Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of Royal Mail’s complaints process, including the time taken to resolve complaints about lost and severely delayed items; and whether he plans to require postal operators to resolve complaints within a fixed timeframe.

Ofcom, as the independent regulator, is responsible for monitoring and assessing the adequacy of Royal Mail’s complaints process. While the government is not involved in Ofcom’s decisions, we support the clear guidance it has put in place on complaints handling processes.

The government has also been clear that some operators need to do more to meet the expectations of their customers including when things go wrong. Ofcom has recognised growing public concerns about operators’ delivery performance and has written to, and met with, the main companies to remind them of their consumer protection obligations and to obtain additional information on their compliance.