Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment has he made of the level of disruption to postal services as a result of covid-19 related absences.

Royal Mail’s contingency plans to mitigate disruption to postal services are overseen by Ofcom, the independent regulator responsible for monitoring the delivery of the universal postal service.

Ofcom carefully monitors Royal Mail’s performance to ensure it is providing the best service possible to customers and has powers to investigate and take enforcement action if Royal Mail fails to achieve its performance targets.

Ofcom will continue to take a pragmatic and proportionate approach to compliance monitoring.