Jim Shannon

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I thank the hon. Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed) for providing the opportunity to speak about this issue. We are seeing the breakdown of vital services in my Strangford constituency and in Ards. We are hearing stories of cancer screening invitations arriving a week after the appointment date. We are seeing small business owners—the backbone of our local economy—having to apologise to customers for parcels that are sitting in the sorting office. We are seeing elderly neighbours waiting for pension letters or bank cards that never come. The staff on the ground are working hard but they are being asked to do the impossible. A system designed for letters has been choked by the sheer volume of parcels and, in the race for profit, it is the humble first-class letter—the one containing peoples’ hospital results or bills—that is being left on the floor. We are told it is a recruitment issue. We are told it is the weather. For the people of Northern Ireland it feels like a postcode lottery. A letter could be a contract or a connection. We are not asking for the world; we are simply asking for a postal service that works for everyone, regardless of their address. I have a quick example of how things are going wrong. I am currently dealing with a child with diabetes who has been accepted for a personal independence payment, but due to Royal Mail delays—it is not the child’s fault, but someone else’s—his form is late and his parents are missing out on more than a month’s worth of payments that they should be entitled to. It is clear that Royal Mail needs to buck up its ideas. Ofcom recently fined Royal Mail £21 million for missing national delivery targets, but that will not get my constituent the backdated PIP money that they are due. Email is beyond many of our older people, and they depend on the so-called snail mail, which must return to being dependable once more. The staff are phenomenal, but root-and-branch changes must take place. The Minister is a good man and I spoke to him about this issue yesterday. We need it sorted Minister; the ball is at your toe.