Dame Meg Hillier

I could list all the issues that my constituents have raised about this issue, but we would be here all night. I concur with a lot of other Members, and I will give some examples. We have a shortage of posties, so I am doing what I can to encourage young people to join the postal service, but clearly I am not going to solve that problem on my own. When I met Royal Mail’s leadership, they said to me, “Don’t worry—in one week, you’ll get a Monday, Wednesday and Friday delivery, and the next week it’s a Tuesday and Thursday delivery,” as though that is somehow okay. That is how the system operates in theory, but a constituent applied for a 60+ oyster card that took so long to arrive that they had to buy a monthly pass, costing over £200, while they were waiting. One constituent received divorce papers weeks late, and five constituents reported not receiving their postal vote for a recent by-election. Exactly as colleagues have said, people are just not bothering to vote because the postal vote is so inefficient. As a canvasser, I panic when I ask someone whether they have voted and they have not posted it yet. If there is only a week to go, I get worried about them putting it in the post. I will start explaining how to go to the polling station to deliver it, and I will see immediately that they lose interest, even if they were going to be around on election day. One constituent nearly lost her home because of delays with their pension administrator sending information backwards and forwards. Letters were not received, and she experienced many delays in getting her pension in place. I will give a couple of local examples. In Hackney Wick, post was delivered on 23 June, 27 June, 1 July and 9 July, and then nothing until mid-August. In Dalston in my constituency, one resident did not receive any post for three months, and another road had no post for eight days. I could go on with such examples.