Andy McDonald

Over the past week, the delivery offices that serve Middlesbrough and Hartlepool have both been ranked in the top five in their regional area for delivery failure. This matters for customers waiting for vital posts and for staff under immense pressure. It is not the fault of the posties; the responsibility lies with the owners. Poor decisions have created a weakened system, chaotic revisions and a recruitment crisis driven by low pay and worse conditions for new starters. The result is a workforce that is overstretched and a service that is letting customers down. As for the USO, the six-day delivery remains a vital national guarantee, but changing specifications alone will not fix a service that is being run down. Ofcom has allowed an uneven playing field when it comes to competitors, such as Amazon, that benefit from the universal network without contributing to its cost. Royal Mail carries the burden of serving over 30 million addresses while others extract profit. My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) made a good point about bogus self-employment among competitors. If we do not get this right, we will undermine the impact of the Employment Rights Act. That is why the CWU is right to call for a universal service fund so that all operators contribute fairly to the network they rely on. Ofcom’s broader approach risks a race to the bottom—it is not pursuing efficiency. If we are serious about improving performance, we have to have a fundamental rethink. I have raised this with the Minister on previous occasions, and I raise it again today. This is a mess and it is collapsing. An obvious solution is staring us in the face: take Royal Mail back into public ownership, and do it quickly.