Royal Mail, Ofcom (Royal Mail’s regulator) and the CWU (Royal Mail’s recognised union) all gave evidence. The session was led by Committee chair, the RT Hon Liam Byrne MP. During the meeting, it was suggested that there may be more sessions in the future. You can watch in full here.
In a letter sent by the Committee to Royal Mail, summoning them to give evidence, concerns were expressed over service failures, missed delivery targets and allegations of prioritising parcels and “batching” letters.
The 500-year-old Royal Mail’s buyout was cleared by shareholders in April last year, after new owners EP Group gave the Government legal undertakings that they would maintain the “one price goes anywhere” Universal Service Obligation (USO).
In July, Ofcom announced significant changes to the USO, with Second Class deliveries dropped down to every second day, Monday to Friday only. The rollout of this new model is currently the subject of a dispute between Royal Mail and the postal workers’ union (CWU).
The PPA wrote to the Business and Trade Committee ahead of the session to raise concerns regarding the impact of Royal Mail’s poor performance on publishers and their customers. This letter was shared as evidence with the committee ahead of the session.
Since the meeting, the Committee have sent letters asking further questions to the EP Group , the CWU, Ofcom, and to Royal Mail and its owners.
The PPA have written a summary on the key topics discussed during the session. View here: