Anneliese Dodds

I certainly agree. Many of us have been very frustrated that we often get stock letters back about the problems being experienced, that our constituents have to go to sorting offices and that we are not seeing the change we urgently need. Given the challenges with recruitment and retention, I have been trying to promote vacancies myself as a local MP. Three things need to happen. First, we need the national management to listen to the local posties and the CWU, because they have ideas about how to deal with this. Secondly, we need to get a grip on the unlevel playing field, especially when it comes to parcels. We all know that the volume of letters is going down, not just in the UK, but right across Europe and other industrialised countries. The parcel trade is therefore really important, but we have a farcical situation where 98% of Royal Mail workers are employees on permanent contracts, yet they do effectively exactly the same job as people who are not employed—people who are under terrible terms and conditions and are treated as if they are self-employed. We all know that is bogus. That needs to be dealt with, because it is leading to an unlevel playing field. Given the Minister’s great experience of working rights legislation, will she ensure that the consultation on bogus self-employment going on at the moment leads to the change that is needed? Finally, I urge the Minister and the Government to focus on the potential of Royal Mail. We are talking about the challenges and representing our constituents’ concerns now, but we have an amazing network in the UK, from the most northerly to the most southerly point. It proved its worth during covid. We should be doing everything we can to recognise and build on that potential. I ask them to please listen to the CWU’s proposals on that in particular.