Chris Bloore

I agree. The Government’s response to the Business and Trade Committee makes the point well: a lack of capacity that forces a company to prioritise some items over others is no justification for failing to deliver the expected service. Royal Mail must deliver 90% of its first-class letters the next working day. It is managing 85%. Against the target of completing 99.9% of delivery routes each day, it is completing just 70%. Those targets have been missed for five years running, while the price of a first-class stamp has risen by 137% to £1.80 and the price of a first-class medium parcel, where Royal Mail competes, has fallen by half. Where there is competition, prices fall; where there is monopoly, prices rise and services continue to fall. What has the regulator done, really? Since 2015, Ofcom has investigated Royal Mail seven times and fined it four times. Last year, Ofcom lowered the very targets Royal Mail was missing and cut second-class delivery days, saving the company up to £425 million—“rewarding failure”, as Citizens Advice put it. More fines will not fix this, yet Ofcom has never come to this House seeking the powers it needs to hold Royal Mail to account. A regulator that can punish failure but cannot compel improvement must answer a fundamental question: what is it for? If Ofcom cannot do its job, a new regulator, with real teeth, must be considered.